I cleaned all the "riding debris" from the handlebar switch and got 12v to the grey and the brown/white white going to the front gear case. I checked per the manual and I'm at around 28.6 ohms when I check between those wires unhooked. I was told there is supposed to be an awd symbol on one of the screena on the speedo when it's engaged but haven't seen one. I don't get front engagement in fwd or rev. Any ideas on what to check before I take the front end out?

 

If you've confirmed that you have 12 volts to the the front gear case by using the the actual brown/white wire from the case as the grounding point on the meter,then sounds like it's the cage problem most people have had. You can jump the thin brown/white front case wire to the main grounding point on the coil to see if having a more positive ground would help,but may or may not make a difference. Last resort is to jump the brown/white wire from the speedo harness to the brown wire in the harness or to another good ground and see if you have awd. Awd goes through the speedo and the speedo itself could be at fault.

 

I looked back over the wiring diagram after I posted this thread and it looked like I could confirm the brown/white as a ground so I used a tap splice and a short piece of wire to a frame ground. While there was still no symbol or icon on the screen, it did allow full operation from the AWD switch. I just need to know if I can make this jumper more permanent or will this eventually mess something else up? BTW, the speedo needle doesn't move but from what I can tell the display screen is working fine(beside the possible awd icon). I guess I should have mentioned that in the first post. I'm not concerned with how fast i'm going as it's got 28" tires on it, so it wouldn't read correctly anyway.

 

Yes,just make a permanent jumper to ground as it sounds the speedo part of the awd system is at fault. As far as the speed itself not registering probably just the hall effect sensor on the right front caliper.Could be dirt/mud on the sensor cap or a bad sensor. Not uncommon for these to fail. #28. Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Honda, Arctic Cat & Polaris OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse

 

Thanks OPT, and like I said I'm not all that concerned with how fast I'm going because it would read wrong anyways. But do I need to cut the br/w out of the plug or will it be fine just to tap into it and ground it with it still plugged in? I just want to make 100% sure what I've got now won't hurt anything else by wanting to make the awd work. I don't know what else it might hurt being that it's carb and not EFI but I just want to double check.

 

Shouldn't hurt just tapping into it,but make sure it's out of the way and water can't get into it.Shouldn't hurt any thing else. Polaris had problems on this thin ground wire that has to run from the switch,through the speedo and then to the front diff. Same thing that the 500 hub mounted awd had that people just made a common ground wire.

 

I'll go ahead and solder and heat shrink the connection with some dielectric grease inside. Thanks again OPT! One more before I go, what is it that the hall sensor picks up on on the rotor? should there be a magnet or something on there? I haven't checked for one but just something that crossed my mind.

 

Just picks up the pulse gap between the drilled slots and solid spots in the rotor.Faster the wheel spins,faster the pulse is resulting in faster speed reading.

 

ahh ok. Thanks Again!