Can I Store My Fuel-Injected YFZ450 Standing on End?

If you’re short on storage space, can you keep a fuel-injected Yamaha YFZ450 ATV standing on end for an extended period of time without damaging it? 

Partzilla’s Yamaha ATV expert John Talley livestreams motorcycle and ATV repair Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern. In this session, John was asked if storing a Yamaha YFZ450 standing up for a while will do it any harm. 

Yamaha ATV Stored Standing Up Q&A

Hi John, I’m tight on space, so is there any harm in storing a fuel injected Yamaha YFZ450 standing it on end for a period of time? 

John Talley: No. It shouldn’t bother it. I’ve seen dealerships do that before. The only thing is your oil is going to all go all the way back. I don’t think it could make it into the overflow tube for the crankcase, but if you’re really going to stand it there for that long, go ahead and drain the oil out. That’s what I would probably do to keep that from happening. Just make sure you put a sticky note on it or a tag or something that says there’s no oil in it. [sarcastic] Not that a dealership has ever started up a unit without any oil because they didn’t know it was drained [laughs]. But no, I don’t think that would hurt the machine at all. 

Watch the video below to see how to change the oil and filter in a Yamaha YFZ450.

Watch the video below to learn how to clean fuel injectors.

Watch the video below for tips about what oil to use when breaking in an ATV engine.

Want to see more live repair questions answered? See more motorcycle and ATV repair questions answered here.