We made a trip up to General Sam's in Huntsville last weekend, and found a major downfall to owning a water cooled ATV. Mud. We had 6 atvs in the group, 2 of which were water cooled. One was a 2007 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 and the other was a 2006 Polaris 700 something or other. The piss poor placement of the radiator (almost at the very front of bike) meant that as soon as we hit the first big mud hole, both bikes got clogged radiators and overheated. We took them back to camp, washed out the radiators, and they were good to go, until we hit the next big mud hole. :( Fucking junk. :mad3: Do the people who make ATVs not think that they're going to be used to go through mud that may be more than a couple inches deep? All the other bikes were fine, and went all day long with no problems, including one little air cooled 250, a Rancher 350, a Foreman 450 and an Arctic Cat 400. Only the water cooled bikes had problems, and they had a lot of them. We couldn't run them for more than a half hour without having to stop and let them cool down.

So, that being said, short of trading the water cooled junk in for something that's oil cooled, what can they do? Mounting an extra radiator on the front rack looks like shit and is asking for problems while trail riding through the woods, you can't really upgrade the existing radiator due to space limits, and running a bypass switch that keeps the fan running all the time seems like it won't help much since the radiator is up front, gets packed with mud easily, and air won't flow through it anyway.

Anyone had this same problem? Know of any good ways to fix it?

Maybe make some sort of shield with louvers in front of the radiator?

Maybe make some sort of shield with louvers in front of the radiator?

They already have that, but it clogs up too. The Kawasaki has a plate in front with holes about the size of a pencil, but it doesn't take long to clog. I think it's a piss poor design. :(