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!

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?

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.

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.

I don't KNOW how it's built
Find out before you go digging

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?

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 !  

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!