greetings, folks. first off, I did a search for this but didn't find much, or didn't know that I had found it due to a lack of technical knowledge.

My family has got a Ski-Doo Grand Touring 583. For a while now it has had problems with idling; ie, it wouldn't. When we went to the cabin this week and tried to start her up for the first time this season it took us a few pulls of the cord, but it started up. For the first few minutes it was incredibly smokey; it looked as if there was oil on the floor of the chasis on the right side around near the muffler. After a while, it went away and it was driving just as it always had been, but still not idling. However, later that night we went to ride it again and it just wouldn't start. Nothing happened with the electric start and we couldn't get it to turn over with the cord. The next day my brother, who has a lot more experience with engines than I, came up and took a look at it. We saw fuel dripping from somewhere on/near the carburatours, so we took off the air filter and started to look at the carbs. the left one was in decent condition, but the right one was incredibly wet with gas. We figure that we're getting too rich of a mixture to the cylinders, but nothing we did could fix it. We tightened up the throttle assemblies and messed with the small screws that regulate fuel input. We're hoping that we can save money by not having to take it to a dealer, as well as the royal pain of getting a non-functioning sled onto a trailer and getting it to the dealer.

Riding conditions: our cabin is located near Kamas, Utah, elevation about 7500-8000 feet. temps range from 10-40 degrees Farenheit.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

el bump :cool:

Not quite sure where to start. Has the sled had a compression test? If it's low nothing you will do would correct the idle problem. Has the sled been stored properly i.e. fuel stabilizer in the gas and engine fogged? If not you could very well have bad gas and gummed up carbs. Can't figure the sled not turning over that night.
Have you tried a new set of plugs and perform a spark test? If the sled is severely flooded from excess fuel try shutting the fuel valve off so the carbs can't pull any additional fuel and perhaps it will help clear it.
Hope this helps.

Thanks. we did a spark test and replaced the spark plugs. I don't believe we used fuel stabilizer, but I think we ran it dry (kept it running till it died for lack of gas). We haven't done a compression test. In the manual it says that if you don't get a good rythmic resistance when you pull-start it then you've probably got a compression issue; however, the pull cord does have the 'rythmic' resistance. Thanks for the advice, though. Every little bit helps, even if basically means take it in to the shop :)

You have good, bright spark and two new dry plugs, then unless the engine has packed it in mechanically which sounds unlikely then it has to be fuel related.
Have you tried holding the throttle wide open while cranking to clear a flooded engine?
I had a 96 Grand Touring 670 and it had a primer rather than a choke. Does yours, and is it possible the primer is leaking causing a over-rich condition? If you remove the plugs and pull it over does fuel spit out of the cylinders?

It does have a primer, but we were very conservative in it's use. We held the throttle open and pulled 20+ times and got nothing. Which plugs are you reffering to? On each carb there are these two tubes that cross each other on the top of the carb and then are held to either side of the carb. They are wide open and when we pull it over we get gas being spit out from somewhere.

this sounds like your seat in the carb is not seating, and one carb is not shutting off the fuel in the float bowl, so your cranking is flooding the engine by the fuel pump. you also may have dry rotary seals which plugs up the engine with oil, and might be dripping on the floor too.

That would explain the oil on the floor. Thanks for the input.

It sounds likethe fuel inlet valves are seeping fuel. The motor eventually hydrolocked with fuel as it sat for a while. You need to pull the carbs and clean them and pressure test the needle/seat sets...

Sunshine