I was finally able to take my 500 out for a good ride today. The first time in about 2 years. After I had been riding for about 15 minutes, everythign just went dark on it. The engine kept running, but that was it. The speedometer stuck at the same speed, the tail light went out, headlights, fan, awd indicator, everything. After a few minutes, it all came back on. Then maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, it all cut out again. It kept doing this the entire time I was riding. We didn't stay out very long because I was worried about it overheating without the fan. I have an idea what it might be, but I wanted to get some other opinions on what could be causing this.

As always, thanks for the help.

 

Start looking at connections for corsion. battery up through.

 

Could the Solenoid be causing this. Not the starter solenoid but the master power solenoid. I am kind of looking at that as the culprit. If it shuts off though, can the engine keep running?

 

i had the same problem with my Sportsman 450 it happended right when i got it back from the dealer they had just put hand warmers on it so they must of knocked something loose. it was just a connection problem take your head light cover off and check all the connections are tight and check the the connections are tight on your ECM. the Dealer also had me unplug the heat sensor to make sure the fan is working. your fan should come on and the check engine HOT light should come on.

 

I will check that. I took it out yesterday and had some severe overheating problems. The radiator appears to be fairly clean, upper and lower. I could hear the fan come on sometimes, but not enough. I did not notice the power going out at all, but it was daytime so I could have easily missed it going out. The heat sensor is on the left side of the engine, correct?

edit: Something else that may be related, I just put the winch back on last week. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When I was out riding yesterday, a friend of mine got stuck and I had to pull him out. I could not get the winch to reel back in. There was no power at all to it. I am thinking it may be a bad switch, but when I look at the voltage that is getting to the winch, it is only around 3 volts. I check it at the solenoid and it is about the same, but fluctuates.

Would it be a good idea to put a temp gauge on it. I know it would make me feel better. I am going to take the radiator and water pump off tonight and flush the entire cooling system with a water hose for a while to make sure there are no obstructions.

 

That is correct. I took mine out yesterday and now i am starting to have over heating problems. I asked my dealer about it a few weeks ago about it overheating and they just said make sure your radiator is clean and you dont have any air in the system. so i cleaned my radiator out and made sure there wasnt any air in it and that helped for a few weeks and now it is starting to overheat again. i would try flushing the radiator like you said and then see what happens.

 

I was looking through my book and it says I have 2 separate sensors. One is for the fan, the other is for the engine hot light. I know for certain that the sensor for the fan is normally closed and only open when it gets hot. I am guessing the Hot light sensor is the same way. That being the case, how would I go about testing them. I know I can short out the connection plug to test the fan and light, but I am asking about the actual sensor itself to make sure it comes on at the right temp.

edit: I just got home and checked the hot sensor. It has a single wire coming out of it. I shorted it against the frame and the light did not come on so I am guessing something farther up the line is bad. I will take the headlight pod apart tonight and find out what is going on up there.

 

Sorry for the long commentary, I just want to provide all the info that may be relevant.

Ok, did what I said and hear are a few more pieces that may or may not be relevant.

Yesterday, when it was overheating, it would do it after a very short period of riding, maybe 300 yards or so. The temperature was around 95f outside. I had no way of checking the temperatures on the engine. The only way I knew it was overheating was that I could hear the hissing coming from the radiator. It would not start immediately after it overheated. The battery seemed to be drained. After letting it sit for about an hour and a half, it started up with no problem. We rode about a mile or 2 and it started overheating again, hissing badly. I shut it down and let it sit for a couple hours. I tred to start it a couple times with no luck. We drove home and the engine would still not start.

I put the battery charger on it tonight for about 30 minutes and it started up with no problems. I shut it down almost immediately to prevent it from warming up.

I back flushed the system for about 10 minutes while it was cold and turned off. I did not notice any excessive debris or other oddities. The coolant was a muddy brown color at first, then went clear after a few seconds as it should have.

When I started the engine, I left the radiator cap off. The instant it started, I noticed a puff of smoke coming out of the radiator. I left it running fro about 30 minutes and the entire time it was running, I could see faint traces of the smoke or steam coming out of the radiator with the cap off. It was white and odorless as far as I could tell.

I monitored the temperature while it was running and the fan came on at the temperatures it was supposed to and cut off when it was supposed to.

Coolant was flowing through the system. At idle, I would guess it was flowing about a gallon per minute. At a slightly higher than idle speed, I am guessing it flows at about 5 - 10 gallons per minute. The flow rates are a complete guess based on visual observation looking inside the radiator cap area.

After about 30 minutes, I put the radiator cap back on and kept it idling for another 30 minutes or so. It never overheated during that time. I monitored the temperature with a infrared thermometer so they may not have been exact, but they were close. The hottest the engine got was around 210f. The radiator got to around 200f. The fan was running while it was that hot.

When I was letting it idle, the temperature outside was 88f.

At one time, I shut the system off, then turned it back on at the key, however the power did not come back on, very similar to what was happening the other night. After sitting fro about 30 seconds with the key in the on position, I heard the solenoid click and the system came back on. I did not have enough time to isolate the location of the problem.

There is what appears to be a master power solenoid that controls the fan and winch as well as an unknown number of other devices. It is mounted to the right side of the frame by the air box. It is right next to the exhaust. It looks to be one of the old Ford type solenoids and it appears to be a homemade install job. This does not appear to be the source of the problem as the headlights and gauge lights and engine still work when only the solenoid is turned off. The solenoid is wired in just below the headlight pod to a wire coming from the key switch. I also noted that the input voltage to the solenoid was 12.41 volts and the output voltage was only 10.6 volts.

The overheat light does not work. Everything in between the sensor and up to the light appears to work. I do not know if the overheat sensor works. It is supposed to come on at 221f and it never got above 210f tonight. I will order a new light tomorrow.

Hopefully someone can help a little with this. Thank you for reading.

 

Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this. I cannot seem to find anything. All my connections look good. I was hoping to have it fixed by this weekend for another riding attempt. I would really appreciate any suggestions on where to go next.

 

I got back out working on it again today. what I found was a huge temp difference between what is in the radiator and what is in the engine near the sensors. At the radiator, the temperature was running around 160f. At the engine right next to where the overheat sensor is, the temperature outside the engine was 240f. The overtemp light did not come on at any time even though it is supposed to come on at 221f. Maybe the water was cooler than the engine block, but not by that much I would think. I am thinking maybe not enough flow from the waterpump? Anyone know how much the water pump should be moving? Right now I am running straight water because I just flushed it out. Could that have anything to do with it? It was still overheating before I flushed it.

I guess my next step is to pull the water pump and see how things look inside there. If I do not hear anything back soon, I will go ahead and start on that. Thanks for any help.