Hello,
I am hoping to find an answer on this as I am buying a trail boss tomorrow but, there may be a problem.

The quad is in very good shape but...

It has no battery in it and I think this may have caused a problem.

When it is pull started - the fan operates immediately and stays on.

After seeing some older posts here, I am concerned that there may be a problem.

Any ideas on what may be wrong or should I just end this deal before I run into problems?

Thanks in advance!

 

welcome to the forum. i guess it depends on if your getting a great deal or not. i wouldn't be paying no where near what it would be worth in the condtion you mentioned esq. if he ran it w/out a battery for a period of time. what year is it?

 

Thanks for getting back.

It's a 2001 - I was going to pay $1100 for it.
I believe that it was run for a while without the battery - most likely a few years.
The battery terminals are taped up so not to short.

The machine is super clean. From all appearances, well maintained. Everything was tight, greased, chain and sprockets good, rims good. Tires were worn - needed replacement.

If I could determine that the thermistor was the only problem, I could negotiate knowing the price. I am just a bit gun shy that it could be the thermister switch, ECM, or some other charging problem caused by no battery.

 

Its probably the switch in the radiator that is bad , this controls the fan, If you could find a battery for it I would check to see if its charging correcly and also check the head, tail lights, turning lights on without a battery will blow all the bulbs. Should charge 13.5-14.5 when idled up some.

 

The fan is for the oil cooler. If it's in good shape and everything els appears to be working, it might not be too hard, or expensive to fix. Sold my 2000 for that and it was run hard. Sold it to someone who wanted it cheap, so I didn't fix anything before I sold it. Needed an a-arm, carb cleaned and the battery was on it's last leg. Surprisingly still starts right up and ran well. Good machine, and took a lot of abuse through the years.

 

I backed out of the deal for now. The is another trail boss listed near me - going to check it out tonite.

All lights are working without the battery but, you can tell it is a strain on the stator as when you apply brakes, the extra load dims headlights and slows the fan.

What worries me is that it could be more than just the thermister in the radiator. With the fan on and no warning light - it could be the thermister switch on the frame. Only way to tell is pull the thermister and play with boiling water to check resistance values.
Easy if it were in my garage, a bit more difficult to convince the seller to let me do testing.

 

I had the seller do a test this morning.

I had him put a battery in and fire up the machine.
The fan is still operating.
Next - he disconnected the connector to the thermister at the oil tank - fan still runs.

This would tell me that most likely the thermister switch (LR-60) is bad.

Now the question remains - Is any thing else gone?
The seller does not have a volt meter to check voltage at idle or rev.

Is the regulator the only other thing that could be affected by running without battery?
BTW, I did ask the seller how long it ran without battery - he claims that it was recent - only starting the machine for possible buyers.