Suzuki Eiger running terribly

[3500GMC]

Neighbors 4 Wheeler, his driveway plow machine. Bone stock.

Ran fine all day until now, I know this because he plowed my drive. :smile5:

Fueled in the morning before setting out to plow, no problems immediately after that. Drained carb bowl, noted NO rust, dirt, or junk in general. This should have taken care of any water too. Spark plug in good shape, no cracks, fouling, etc.

Engine will start and idle. With the slightest movement of throttle, it will stutter- like every other firing cycle, kind of like a rev limiter. Will not rev up. I moved the choke gradually 'ON' while trying to rev, but no difference at all in the manners of the engine. To me this would rule out a fuel problem, or at least a lean condition. No smoke, popping or knocking either.

Helpful suggestions?

 

[ak diesel driver]

Some machines have a strainer right where the fuel line comes out of the tank. Maybe a frozen strainer?

 

[chevyCowboy]

try some heat. ??????

 

[3500GMC]

Just pulled fuel tank. No ice. Plenty of flow, hose is full flow.

As stated before, drained carb bowl, no blockage or crud. All gravity system, no pumps.

We checked for spark from plug wire, there is none. Will not even start now. I know it gets a pulse from the engine 'somewhere' to the coil pack, which is off the bike now. Only two small wires and the plug wire.

Don't really know how to bench test this coil.

One of the wires to the coil has key on 2.2mv. Drops when cranking. This wire is white & black trace. It goes somewhere in the harness.

The other wire, white & blue trace, goes to handle bars. I guess for ignition and kill.

 

[db9938]

Sounds vaguely like carburetor icing. Might try using the wife's hair dryer, while it's idling, and allow it to pull in some of the warm air from it.

 

[duramaxdude]

Check for spark by grounding the threads of the plug on a good surface. Then turn it over. If that proves good then throw some gas diectly into the carbourator and it should fire. If it dosent fire it is diffanetly spark realated.

If it runs then dies it is most likely a dirty carb. On my yamaha big bear I was harrowing the driveway one day and it just started dying when you hit the throttle. I was able to keep it going by putting my hand over the aircleaner. It idiled fine but you couldnt go anywere.

 

[3500GMC]

Post #4 eludes to 'no spark'

Apparently the earlier Eigers suffered from a shitty flywheel design. The newer versions have a one-piece magnet.

Some failures are catastrophic... The magnets come loose taking out the Stator, Pickup coil, Gearing and sometimes the reciprocating assembly of the engine. This one is lucky.

A new flywheel is ONLY 450 bucks.... Yeah, the part with the magnet.

Thanks Japan.

 

[db9938]

Wow that's a crappy design.... Good to hear that nothing catastrophic happened. Is the replacement design any better than glued in magnets?

If that's the case, personally I might JB weld them.

 

[3500GMC]

All the magnets were easily pulled out by hand. The local Suzuki shop knew what was wrong as soon as I said 'Eiger no sparkie'... A notorious failure, they said.

Flywheel puller is only another 100 bucks. :rolleyes5: The shop offered to pull the failed part for 5 bucks. Now all wee gotta do is get it there. They don't lend tools. Can't say I blame them for that.

So I guess the ball is in his (the neighbor) court now.

The new flywheel will be the updated design. The magnet is one piece. Somehow... Or just formed together with other materials.

 

[3500GMC]

Finally fixed the Eiger

Well the neighbor went and spent $475 for a 4 pound piece of steel yesterday. Once everything was buttoned up, the bike fired right up. The loose magnets were what caused all this mess.

The starter sprag is a critical part to pay attention to. It's a 'one way' roller bearing. Note the arrow, it installs arrow toward engine, counter clockwise rotation.

Also note the 'new design' flywheel... Seems all they did was press a SS sleeve (probably with glue :rolleyes5 over the magnets to keep things intact. SS=non-magnetic. Torque spec was 115 (!) ft./lbs. for the flywheel nut. That was scary.

It's a neat experience to hear all kinds of parts falling to the bottom of the case half when you remove it. Now where did THAT go....

 

[chevyCowboy]

It's a neat experience to hear all kinds of parts falling to the bottom of the case half when you remove it. Now where did THAT go....

been there done that. when you pull the right side crank case on a 90 honda 300 stuff starts falling, Kick started and some little parts that have to do with shifting. thought i had it all back together right fired it up drove it a while and then bad news had to tear it all apart buy more parts. ughh that was a PITA, i bought a clymers repair manual the second time

 

[irish-redneck]

Hello

Just bought an 03 eiger 400 , and stumbled over some posts that mentioned magnets coming loose.

No dealer near me admits to having ever heard of this, apart from one who claims to have heard something maybe in a magazine...

So my question is , how frequent of an issue is this, Should i replace it now to be safe , or is it a known yet uncommon failure?

 

[3500GMC]

That Eiger I worked on is an '06. Yours has the same crap design unless it was fixed before you got it. No real way to tell until you tear into it.

If the bike is in good shape and you plan to keep it, I would strongly recommend doing the update. Once the magnets come loose, all hell will break loose. As I said in an earlier post- this one was lucky.

The track record for this particular bike is well known, my neighbor bought it brand new- I helped him unload it. He is not one to thrash things but it just so happens that on the day of failure back in February, he was plowing deep wet snow and was workin' it pretty hard. It just quit running.

Now after the flywheel update, my neighbor noted a better running bike... So who only knows if the magnets were already starting to MOVE prior to the day of failure.

Best of luck.

 

[PA452]

Same problem here with my 2004. It was only bought new in August 2005. About a month ago it stopped running. I got a chance to do some troubleshooting yesterday and concluded there was a problem with the generator. Pulled the side today and found the same problem with the magnets, except my magnets were loose and broke. Stator appears to be in good condition though.