got a free 200x 15+ year barn sitter

[shadowmike]

my dad gave me a 84 200x thats been in his barn for over 15 years. he has a 185s thats been his ice fishing sled puller for 20yrs. he bought the 200x cheap to fix up but never did. i went to check it out today and its looks pretty nice. tried kicking it but its locked up tight. i pulled the spark plug and shot some wonderlube in. ill let it sit a day or two and give it another kick. i dont really know the history of it and he cant remember what was wrong with it or if he could ever kick it over. im quite sure its gonna need top end rebuild. i think i can handle that part but have never done a 4 stoke.i checked the service manual and it doesnt look to bad of a project. bottom end would be a differant story.any advice or problems i should be aware of? am i looking at a huge headache or money pit? ill keep doing my homework here.looks like alot of good info can be found. thanks for any help

[yaegerb]

Do a search in the upper-right hand corner box of this site. There have been numerous threads about 200x engines and I am sure you can find something. If not, let us know and welcome to the site!

[dustrunner]

if it's in good shape then throw a few bucks at it...worse case = get a different engine if ya cant get it running..

[redsox]

pics pics pics!!!!

[shockwheeler]

You always like the free ones!

[kb0nly]

I would pull the plug and soak the cylinder in PB Blaster, then just loosely put the plug back in, let it soak a couple days then come back and with the ignition off and plug removed see if you can kick it over. If you can then drain the oil and give it fresh oil, since its been sitting that long i would open the caps up on the rocker cover and pour some oil into the head to lube the cam as well. Then close it all up and put in a fresh plug and gas and see if you can get it running. DONT USE STARTING FLUID... You might have a stuck ring yet and you don't need to putting that crap in their regardless.

Get it running if you can kick it over, will likely smoke like a chimney fire, drive it around a bit, slowly, check out all the gears, etc. If you can get to this point then i would tear off the top end and get a top end gasket kit and a new piston and rings and hone the cylinder, that is if its within spec, if you got a shop locally that can do machine work have them measure it before you spend any money on parts.

You might get lucky and get a runner after freeing it up, unless it was killed and left locked up.. Never know till you try.

[shadowmike]

i went back to the barn today and got it into the light to get a better look at it. its not to bad for 30 years old.missing the head light,looks like a wheelie went bad broken grab bar and cracked plastic. no gas tank dents or rips in the seat.looks like a good project. i tried kicking it over again today with the plug out.kicker goes about half way down with no resistance and stop solid. gonna hit it good with pb blaster and try again later. if it was heat seized any idea how bad a rebuild will be? new motor bad? i really want to restore it.i used to trade my friend my jet ski for his 200x for the day.it was a fun ride.only bad memory was wrecking my shin kick starting it.i told my g/f i was gonna restore the 200x her response was 'oh great you gonna grow your mullet back too' i guess she not as excited about it as i am

[kb0nly]

Sounds like she is still froze solid then by your description. If soaking with some PB don't free it up ain't nothing going to. I had one like that before, spent a long time sitting in a barn with NO spark plug in it. Someone pulled out the plug years ago for some reason, maybe trying to get it running and gave up. I soaked it and soaked it and it wouldn't free up with the kick starter.

So what did i do then? Pulled the motor out and got it on the bench, tore the top end off, when i got to cylinder removal i found the piston was still firmly seized into the bore, a rubber mallet and a chunk of wood into the bore and tapping it while trying to pull up on the cylinder eventually got it broke free. The oil control rings left an indent on the cylinder, i think it was seized before being parked. The top end looked ok otherwise, cam was fine. Its definitely saveable. I had the cylinder bored and honed by a local shop, back when i still had a local shop here to do stuff like this, and then just bought gaskets, timing chain and tensioners, piston and rings, slapped it together and gave it fresh oil and gas and it ran for years til i sold it.

It won't be new motor bad i would bet on it, the top end is likely fubar from sitting. Its possible you have bad crank bearings, but i haven't replaced the crank bearings on a 200 yet... They seem to take a lot of abuse.

[yaegerb]

Sounds to me like your crank bearings or wrist pin bearing is ghandi. Time for a case splitter, a manual and patience

[shadowmike]

any reason you think its crank bearings and not just a seize piston?

[yaegerb]

any reason you think its crank bearings and not just a seize piston?

sure, because you said above you were able to kick it down to a certain point and then it stops. That means if you can kick it even a little bit that the piston is moving in the cylinder, albeit a small distance, its still moving and then it abruptly stops. Sounds like where it stops is a bad spot on the crank bearing or the wrist pin bearing.

This is of course assuming you are trying to kick it in neutral or you are at least pulling in on the clutch lever when trying to kick it.

[ColtonGG33]

Pics pics pics

[shadowmike]

ok im a moron (sorry iwas born that way) after i rolled it out into the light in neutral i put it in 4th and tried to roll it to see if it was free its a dirt floor so it just skidded i then looked it over for awhile before trying to kick it over. i forgot to put in back in neutral and no i didnt pull in the clutch. i stood beside it and kicked it like a motorcycle.im still a little gun shy about standing on the pegs and kicking it over after busting up my shins on a 200x when i was younger. ill try kicking again tomarrow. thanks for the help

[rouseanator]

I scored a 84 200x and the motor would turn over but the timing was off, tried to re time it you could tell cause the dot on the timing sproket was way off so got the timing sprocket off and couldn't get it back on. So called up a local shop they said bring it down, here are the prices they quoted me they would look at it and do a leak down test after they timed it that would be around 70 to 80 bucks but with that he would know exactaly what was wrong with it. So piston kits run around 100 to 150 and they said to rebore the head would be 40 bucks, so on mine it turned out it had a new piston and it measures to be a stock size and all looks ok but what happend with mine is when they put it back together and it wasn't in time they bent the valves and the timing chain got stretched so they said to put new valves and timing chain and a timing chain guide and re time it and adjust the valves it would be like 250 bucks thats all done by the shop so I get it back ready to throw it in. I think thats a good price for all that and should run like a champ after that. a engine on ebay was around 300-500 bucks and you don't know what is warn or broke etc, so for me the 70-80 bucks to get it looked at by a pro was worth it to me if it wasn't under 300 bucks I would have considered looking for a new engine I got lucky. I would take it in and see what they say and go from there at least you will know what you got to do and go from there. good luck

[tri again]

so it spins now?

I was thinking if a valve was rusted open it would stop it like that.

I filled one with diesel on top of some good new oil and turned it over upside down to lube
the underside of the piston etc.

worst case is an auto x conversion.
My bet is that you may not have to spend a dime on it.

Bring the carb in the kitchen and boil it in vinegar if you really want your wife to
be on your side.
or
somehow give her the best of the collection and
casually say how hard it is to surprize her with nice things.....as this one was gonna
be lovingly fixed and to be her new ride
and then DUCK!, roll and run.