SuzukiSavage.com /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Need help with my 4 Wheeler - SOLVED /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1515366145 Message started by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 15:02:25

Title: Need help with my 4 Wheeler - SOLVED Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 15:02:25 Hey gang..I need some guidance with my 4 Wheeler.  Was using it last night and after turning it off between trips to the shop it wouldn't respond. Turn the key to power or power+lights and nothing. No headlights, parking lights. no LCD display. Acts as if the battery is completely disconnected. For those that know me, I am decent mechanically but not a great electrician. I have looked at the obvious and no dice... Here are the pertinent details: - 2008 Arctic Cat 250 2x4 Utility - Relatively new battery holding ~13v+ charge - Checked and cleaned ground wire and inspected - Checked and re-checked all fuses and all test good. Even swapped the main. - Inspected the wiring that can be seen without tearing up wire looms and all looks good with no rubs or apparent grounding. I started testing things with the meter to see where I was and was not getting voltage and I was not getting any voltage at either side of the terminal on the main fuse meaning power wasn't making it that far (checked with key in tall positions). Found the hot feed from the battery and tracked one to the starting solenoid (replaced earlier this year) and the other heading towards the rectifier.  I unplugged the rectifier and tested the terminals from the battery side and I was getting proper 13v+ which was good. When I plugged the rectifier inline and tested the output side of the rectifier I got no voltage anywhere. All terminals 0 voltage. My obvious question is, can a fried/bad rectifier kill power to the entire system? I was under the impression it was sort of a bypass and not in the linear path of all of the power going to the rest of the system?  I hope that the answer is that the rectifier is bad and this is why the entire electrical system acts "dead" and once I plug in a new one it'll bring power back to the system. Thanks in advance!

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by Dave on 01/07/18 at 15:44:57 You didn't say if you cleaned the battery terminals at the battery. Does the (+) wire go directly to the switch from the battery?  If so.....do you get power to the backside of the switch?

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 16:38:12 Yes. Cleaned and re-checked terminal connections. I grease my terminals as well with battery grease to stop corrosion. I can't find a wiring diagram. The smaller hot wire doesn't go directly to the switch as far as I can tell but it's wrapped up and hard to follow.  It appears that one larger hot wire goes to the starter solenoid and the other (smaller wire) is what runs through the wire loom and seems to be what I chased to the hot wire going into the rectifier that is hot on the battery side but not hot on the other side of the rectifier when I put the rectifier in line. In reading this shop manual, it seems to act like the unit should start even with a faulty rectifier?

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 16:42:18 When I do this "fuse block" test I get no voltage anywhere to either side of the fuse terminal where I should be getting something to at least one side, regardless of what the key/ignition switch is doing. Maybe I need to go recheck the positive terminal and wiring? Does a bad CDI kill the whole system like this or does it just make it not want to get proper ignition and crank?

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 16:44:59 Oh...and yes, I tested all the way to the backside of the ignition switch and no voltage anywhere up there. Something further back is killing all power to the ignition system and lights, etc.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by justin_o_guy2 on 01/07/18 at 17:03:50 A wire from the battery to the ignition switch should be hot. Check the maintenance manual for an inline fuse or fusible link. hat is a Fusible Link? - White Products Cleveland Ohio www.whiteproducts.com/fusible-faqs.shtml A fusible link is a short piece of insulated low-voltage cable within an automotive wiring harness that is designed to protect the harness in applications where a fuse is unsuitable.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 17:12:51 Thanks JOG. Never knew those existed but now know what to hunt for and not overlook it, if it has one, thinking it's just a bundle of electrical tape.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by justin_o_guy2 on 01/07/18 at 18:35:11 If you don't have a manual, call the dealership and ask questions. Or see if you can find a forum for the four wheeler. Is there a small wire that runs with the positive battery cable? If so, see if you can Feel it. I would expect it to be the hot lead to the ignition. The Half Split method of troubleshooting saves time. If you trace the wire that is supposed to  feed the ignition, go back toward the battery about 1/2 way to the  battery and dig in and see if you have power. If yes, tap in, go to the switch or hunt for the break.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by justin_o_guy2 on 01/07/18 at 18:37:58 I don't KNOW how it's built Find out before you go digging

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/07/18 at 19:33:27 I'm not locating a wiring diagram easily. I do agree I think there should be a hot wire to the ignition somewhere up there but that's what puzzled me when I couldn't find voltage anywhere in the ignition harness. I would think that this comes after the fuse box though, not before, but I need to take a closer look at the wiring. I'm going with the idea that a wire is bad or a burned fusable link leading to the fuse box because I was not getting voltage on either side of the main fuse poles in the fuse box. I'll dig around some more tomorrow and see if I can make better sense of things. I'm starting to think the rectifier is ok and not part of the problem so I'm putting it back in place while I chase the wiring from the battery to the fuse box and see where the voltage stops reading good.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/08/18 at 10:21:33 I searched and finally located a wiring diagram. I'm no expert at these but it does give me some guidance what all this thing has.  I particularly noted a fuse for #22 that I was not aware of that is apparently tucked up in the machine somewhere. Maybe I'll get lucky and that's it...but it still puzzles me why I was not getting voltage to either side of the main fuse terminal block.  Maybe I wasn't holding my tongue right?

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by justin_o_guy2 on 01/08/18 at 11:10:40 If you don't have a ground,, you won't get a reading.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by MMRanch on 01/08/18 at 14:24:53 Stew One of the tricks I use when hunting on wires is : Take a big strait pin from the wifes sewing stuff , you can push it into a wire , take a reading , then remove it without having to do any skinning !   wish I could help more !   :-? PS... don't get you fingers on the back side of the wire ... use a small wood block !  ;)

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by verslagen1 on 01/08/18 at 14:41:10 I got a couple of industrial type push pins that I do that with.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/09/18 at 14:53:03 Thanks gang.  Now that it is not raining and freezing outside, I hope to get down in the shop tonight and see if I can make sense of this thing. I'll keep you posted!

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler Post by stewmills on 01/09/18 at 19:20:21 Ok...got to investigating and I think it is a bad voltage regulator (what we call the rectifier).  It is #18 in the wiring diagram. I verified I have voltage to the red/wht harness wire to #18 and verified I have continuity from the blk wire of the #18 harness to the MAIN 15A fuse terminal. But when I plug the voltage regulator into the harness and then test for voltage at the fuse at the blk pole I get no voltage. THEN, when I unplug the #18 harness and jumper the red/wht to the blk I of course get voltage at the MAIN 15a fuse AND when I try to crank it up it cranks as expected BUT the key switch seems to be bypassed when doing this. It will start with the key in the off position and the only way to kill the engine is using the on/off switch on the handlebar.  I can only presume that this means that the voltage regulator is the culprit, and when the voltage regulator is working properly and plugged in that everything then works as expected with the key switch, etc. So...it looks like I need a $40 voltage regulator. Now on to sourcing one of those....

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler - SOLVED Post by stewmills on 01/11/18 at 06:33:33 I solved the electrical issue!  It was tempting, but I kept after this and didn't buy a new (used) harness off fleabay for ~$70 or more. What I ended up finding, which is exactly what several people have mentioned here and on the AC forum (nowhere near as good as this one), was a fault in the harness where it goes between the tank and front of the seat/frame headed towards the front (on the left side).  I used push-pins to peel back the harness cover and check voltage, had voltage in the red/wht on the right side before it went up behind the tank but no voltage up where the harness splits off to the coil. That told me there had to be a break somewhere in between.  I kept peeling things back until I found where the red/wht was in a factory splice and it worked loose, more like just broke loose (see pics). The wiring diagram was a great help, but you can't follow these things literally. In my case, the splice here is to carry power back from this live feed back to the regulator. Why they spliced it way up here versus jumping off back by the regulator and saving 2' of wire is beyond me, but whatever.  I guess that is why I kept going back to the voltage regulator because of the voltage there but not up front, and it wasn't until I peeled things back to see the splice and understand exactly what was happening that I understood the big picture. So, to make the repair I cut off the old bad ends of all of the wires, then got a 2" piece of matching gauge wire and joined the wires back up in a heat shrink butt crimp connectors and then sealed over all connections with an additional layer of heat shrink tubing. I left a bit of slack in this repair so the remaining wires that are solid will carry the tension of the harness and this new splice can just rest in there without the risk of getting pulled apart, etc. On a secondary note, I also found a connection in the ignition harness that was weak by mistake (was wiggling the harness after the main repair and the dash was coming on and off) so I cut out the bad section where the harness made a very tight 180 degree bend around a bracket and all is well. My first time chasing wires on this level and trying to make sense of a wiring diagram on my own, and I have learned a lot and am more confident the next time something like this arises.

Title: Re: Need help with my 4 Wheeler - SOLVED Post by Dave on 01/11/18 at 07:27:52 Good job tracking down the problem.....sometimes the only way to resolve these issues is to play detective and just follow along the path the electricity is supposed to flow.  I had a 1970 Dodge Dart with a similar issue that kept the tail lights from working.....I found a broken wire in the trunk after a considerable amount of searching.

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