Its a real blessing to have people here who are willing to help us with our Chinese Atvs, because although I am a bit mechanicaly inclined, some things just puzzle the heck out of me.

Here is the problem, I purchased the little Raceway Utility 110 in 2007. I disconnected the alarm system when I got it because it was drawing the battery down. Everything went fine for a few months, then I changed the battery, because it would not turn over anymore. That went fine for a few months but I always noticed that it would hesitate a bit to spin the starter. Now we are down to the last few months, the battery is not a year old. I have put a charge on it at least three times since when it started cranking slowly. When it gets to this point it kinda like pauses before the starter kicks in like a little battery is trying to start a big engine but can't because of the compression and eventually you would get one turn of the engine but not enough to fire it. Well after laying on the starter too many times when is not fully cranking, melted a green colored ground wire that accompanies the main larger black grounding wire on the negative battery post. I traced it back up underneath the seat where it goes into the main wiring harness and saw that it is soldered to two other green wires in the harness. I was able to cut back enough of the wire, where the copper did not look discolored from heat and the rubber was not melted, to run a new slightly larger wire. I also put a full charge on the battery and went to crank her up. She turned over alot better but it still seems to me that when you hit the starter button its straining, or like pauses a second, then will spin the starter. I think the ground wire got hot and began to melt the insulation due to my boy laying on the starter when it would not actually turn over but I don't know why it chose this small ground wire to melt. Does anyone think it is the starter or just not enough crank power and how can I remedy this. If it melts much more wire I will have to take the bike apart to get to the wiring harness where I would have to resolder the connection not to mention I don't know what other problems it will cause. I also checked the main ground and connections at the starter/selenoid, all the connections are tight.

tks

 

Your main ground wire from the battery negative terminal to the frame has a bad connection somewhere along its path. This would be the large black wire, not the little green wire accompaning it.

Starters draw a lot of current (roughly 40 amps). That's why the wires down to the starter are so big. But the ground return path must pass all of the starter current too on the way back to the battery (through the big black wire). If your big ground return wire is open or has a bad connection, the ground return current will try to get back to the battery through the little wire, which will melt it if you crank the starter for more than a few seconds.

 

Thanks, I will undo the big black ground wire where it connects to the side of the engine and maybe sand a little on the connector and where it connects to the body to get a clean connection. I had undone it, but not completely, and retightened it but I can see what you are saying it may not be grounded that well even if it was tight, I checked the actual big black ground wire all the way down to where it grounds to the engine and it did appear fine, maybe I should find another grounding location, like scrape some paint off the frame of the bike and attach it their, do you think that might work better? I included a link to a picture of where the ground wire attaches to the engine, you access the screw that holds it to the engine from the other side but I am at work at could only find this picture that actually shows where the ground wire is located, just follow the arrow and if you enlarge a bit you can see it.

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/58/arrowground.jpg

 

Sometimes bad connections are hard to see. If you can't find the problem then I would disconnect the small ground wire from the battery, and remove the main fuse. Then all there is left is the fat battery (+) cable through the solenoid to the starter, and the fat ground return back from the engine chassis to the battery (-) terminal.

You won't be able to use the ignition switch and start button to crank the starter (because all the wiring and interlock circuitry is now disconnected), rather you you have to short the big two solenoid terminals together manually with a screwdriver. Then you could measure voltage drops along the wiring for bad connections. Also use your hands to feel for hot connections after a bit of cranking. Hot connections are bad connections.

If you do this make sure the quad is in neutral and the brakes are set first in case the quad should start up. If you set the ignition switch to "on" and all the kill switches to the "run" position the quad should start up when you short across the solenoid.

 

Tks, I will give it a try, I just have to wait until the weekend because of work, I will check out the main big black wire ground location first and clean it real well. So from there if that does not work, once I disconnect everything, and start it off the solenoid, do I meter check along the entire wiring harness inlcluding the wiring inside the sealed wiring harness or just where I see connections to the starter, switch, etc and I guess what I am looking for is a drop from 12volts? Sorry for stupid questions but I never traced down an electrical problem on a motorized vehicle before.

 

Weekends are great for me too.

First see what happens when you short across the solenoid. Does the starter turn? Does it turn faster? If you turn on the ignition switch (the only thing this does is eliminate one of the kill switches) and put any other kill switch into the "run" position, does the quad start?

If the quad turns slow, or not at all, then use the meter to find the bad connection:

Measure the voltage between the battery positive terminal (and I do mean terminal - not the lug that attaches to the terminal) and the screw terminal going into the starter (again, the screw terminal - not the lug attached to the terminal) while cranking the starter by shorting the solenoid. Ideally that voltage should be zero because they are connected together with big wires and your screwdriver short across the solenoid, but in the real world there will be some voltage drop because even big wires and good connections have some resistance. Note that value.

Then measure the voltage drop from the battery negative terminal (not lug) to the metal case of the starter motor while cranking the starter. Compare this value with the positive path voltage. Symmetry should apply: If the positive starter path is 3 feet long and you get 0.40 volts drop, and the starter ground return path is the same length you should get roughly the same drop. If you get (for example) 3.4 volts on the ground return path then you have a problem with the ground return path. Then you would measure the drop across each joint and wire segment looking for the connection that has the biggest drop. That joint may be right at the battery negative terminal between the lug and the battery terminal - hence the reason to start off measuring right at the battery terminal and not the lug. Also note that this whole excercise assumes that the small ground wire and main fuse are disconnected.

The symmetry rules also say that no one joint should get hotter than any other in the round trip path. No one segment of wire should get hotter than another. They are all in series, should have similar resistances, and dissipate the same power. A hot joint is a bad joint.

 

Tks alot Lynn for the detailed information and procedure really appreciate it. I will shoot for Saturday on trying it out, hopefully I can find any drop in an easily accessed area without having to rip apart the entire wiring harness and trace each connection. I will let you know what I find. I really see what you are saying now about the large black negative return which really sounds like it could be the problem, because it should have carried the voltage back to the battery through it instead of finding a path that had better conduction which would have been the small wire.

 

I had the same problem with one of mine... it would smoke the ground wire from the battery while cranking to start. If it started quick no smoke...harder to start and well it fried a bit of the wire... My problem was ALL of the ground wires...about 5 of them were all connected to a much smaller wire and then that wire was the ground...I added a new ground and a larger wire and its not been a problem since..

 

Tks for the nfo, so your problem was not where the main large ground was grounded to the engine but where several of the smaller ground wires come together Into one wire and ground to the frame?

 

Exactly..