Peewees wet won't start

[99CR250]

Hi
we took the pw80 & qr50 on the beach. All went well until they got a decent douse from a wave. They weren't submerged/held under water, just a momentary heavy splash. After that the pw was dead , the ht cap looked dry and ok, I didn't have tools to investigate further (also not sure where to check next as cables under tank). Having made a heap of failed attempts to restart we jetwashed the bike - then it started, still a bit spluttery but eventually clearing. How can more water fix this problem?!
The qr eventually came right.
Is there anything we can do to improve their water resistance?
Thanks

[duckonin]

Hi
we took the pw80 & qr50 on the beach. All went well until they got a decent douse from a wave. They weren't submerged/held under water, just a momentary heavy splash. After that the pw was dead , the ht cap looked dry and ok, I didn't have tools to investigate further (also not sure where to check next as cables under tank). Having made a heap of failed attempts to restart we jetwashed the bike - then it started, still a bit spluttery but eventually clearing. How can more water fix this problem?!
The qr eventually came right.
Is there anything we can do to improve their water resistance?
Thanks

Would hate to buy a bike off you..

[morg_nz]

lol i'd say, why would you have a bike close enough to a wave to get doused?

[SpikedPunch]

Well I'm assuming there were little kids on there, they aren't always so good with target fixation :P

[=cJ=]

Salt water's more conductive than fresh, so maybe the washing cleaned the salt water out of where it shouldn't have been and got rid of a stray short circuit?

[vindy500]

maybe in the time you took to jet wash it, the problem fixed itself

[99CR250]

kids having fun in an inch or two of water (before a wave...)
we'd tried starting just before the jetwash, perhaps it was as you suggest the salt conductivity...?

is there anything we can do to improve the bike's water resistance?

[cheese]

Check the air filter, my brothers wee Chinese quad blocks up with sand pretty bad at the beach. Also check the magneto, I think that they are plastic on the PW???

[L Rider]

the only PW80 i've been around died whenever it went through any puddle even when not deep - i think they just don't like water.
I think they may have just put installation tape on the cap to try & stop water getting in - i see you've said yours was dry though.
It did start going not long after again though.

[Dave89]

Yeah had the same problem with ours even in fresh water puddles, fixed it by attatching a mud flap to the bottom of the air box ( thing that looks like a pretend radiator at the front) to keep the water off the front of the motor , ht cap and plug. Also made sure the air box lid was well sealed and had a drain hole in the bottom ( behind the mud flap ) to let out any excess water. Downside to all this is less air is getting to the front of your motor but it never caused a problem and always survived a good soaking.

[FROSTY]

It's more common with the copies out of china. Theres a reason the front guard on a genuine pW80 doesnt go right around the back --its to try to reduce the water hitting the plug cap. (We used to have 3 PW80s) the best answer I found was using HMP grease all around the plug cap and where it joins the coil. That helps a lot

[99CR250]

some good suggestions, thanks for the comments