I have a 05 sportsmen 500, I can NOT get it to start, I've been searching the web and looking for problems like I have. it will crank and crank but won't fire up. it's been sitting for about a year I think and we stopped riding it cuz it needed some tranny fluid. couldn't add tranny fluid in jail so. anyway Ive drained all of the oil put new in and filter, new plug, and yes I am getting spark. Although the battery is completly DEAD I hook up jumps to it thru a jeep and everything is powerd just fine. Drained the gas put mid grade in it, cleaned the carb jets and still nothing. also when I pull start it it's closer to starting than cranking it with the key. Anybody have experience with this quad at all? Or could know what my problem could be? really appreciated if so. Also no fuse box, just relays

 

Welcome to the forums..Keep a good dose of Marine Stabil,Star Tron,etc in the tank and you won't have to drain the fuel in case you ever get thrown back into the slammer.. Just cleaning a carb doesn't always work especially if a needle and seat is sticking. Best to always install a carb kit. Jumping off from an auto battery isn't the best idea either as it can damage electrical components if you're not careful. Just get a new battery if needed and see if that solves the problem. If it still just tries to start better with the recoil the problem may be a dirty pick up coil or the coil may need to be moved in a bit. Look at this members problems and finding the fix and see if it may help you.
"Have Spark When Using Electric Starter"....


I really had my wits tested on this one, and it had me going in circles only to wind back up at the pulse coil (trigger). I was thinking, I had spark only when using the recoil, so what's up with that? I asked my self, one last time and if I couldn't figure it out, then I'll throw in the white flag, which is something I'm not doing without a fight

I remover the recoil cover last night after work, and began inspecting...

I looked at the pulse coil for any signs of rust, damage ect...nothing except for a large gap between the coil and flywheel magnet, I thought that looks incorrect, thinking back on all my years working on cars and small engines.

Well a while back the pull rope broke while engine was running. The cord wrapped around everything under the recoil housing and caused the starter bendix to jamb. I found frayed cord all over the place and bits of metal stuck to the magnet on the pulse trigger. I cleaned all this up and installed a new starter bindix, buttoned everything up, and that's when this no starting issue came up...well to shorten this up, apparently when the pull rope broke cord jamed everything up inside the recoil housing, it also pulled (bent) the pulse trigger down away from the flywheel magnet. In this position the trigger was only able to send the electrical pulse to the cdi to fire the coil, when using recoil starter, because it rotates the engine at a slower speed, than the electric starter, so the pulse coil could pick up that slower magnet of the flywheel and not the faster moving electric starter because of the large air gap, resulting in a no start when using electric starter, condition

feel free to correct me if I'm incorrect,

but when I bent the pulse trigger back up in the correct position and reset the air gap, re tightened the screws, installed the recoil housing. I went to check for spark at the plug with electric starter.....GOT BIG BLUE SPARK!!!!!!! now lets put the plug back in and see if she will fire up.....YES! YES! YES!!!! it fired up on the first hit of the key..

Any future questions or problems please post in the Polaris section..

 

Welcome to the forums.