I recently bought a 98 warrior and the gut told me something was unhooked or broke that allowed it to start while in gear, obviously not a safe thing. Any ideas on where to start looking for a fix would be greatly welcome. There doesn't appear to be anything unhooked, no connections left dangling and does run fine. I do have an 89 warrior and wiring is practically identical and nothing looks out of place. Help?

 

JayP, some might say, "If it's broke, don't fix it!"

Lots of ATVers spend lots of calories, achieving the "start in any gear" mod you now possess.

Some don't consider starting in any gear a hazard; rather, having a quad die on a hillclimb and having to hunt neutral to get it started again appears more of a hazard to them. It's your quad, you decide; depending upon who else may be riding it and how competent and savvy they might be . . .


Likely, the neutral switch (normally residing inside the transmission) is bypassed on you quad, providing a path for current through the starter solenoid. (A separate solenoid in series with the starter solenoid field coil is sometimes used in conjunction with this switch.)

Tracing wires with a shop manual will probably enable you to restore the neutral interlock, if you really want it--otherwise, surely your dealership service department can. If the tranmission must be entered to work on the neutral switch, bring money!

Tree Farmer

 

JayP,
lol, there is nothing unhooked. The Warrior is designed to start in any gear (with the clutch disengaged, of course). That's one of the nicer features of the machine..no hunting around for neutral. Just pull the clutch & hit the button
Now, if it is starting without declutching, that's another story altogether.

 

If it starts in gear without pulling the clutch lever it's one of the two relays located above your main fuse at the left rear of your frame under the fender. I forgot which of the two it is but definitely one of those. I believe it is the larger one, but I'm not sure. They just unplug and lift off their tab on the frame. It takes about a minute to replace and $30 or so for a new one.

 

The Warrior is designed to start from any gear so you don't have a problem anywhere. Now that is only true if you have the clutch pulled in. But if it starts in any gear with the clutch out then you have a problem that needs fixing.

 

Hmmn, I could swear I just said all that above. but then there is no swearing here.

 

This sounds like exactly what I don't want. You make a good point about leaving it as is if it's really not hurting anything. My wife will probably ride it occasionally, I guess she'll just have to learn. I was ckecking a few things mentioned in some of the other posts and I have an older Warrior also and got ideas out of a repair manual. I pulled off the older one the starting circuit cut-off relay and the nuetral switch relay one at a time and put on newer one and neither changed anything,I was really grasping for anything. As long as this won't hurt anything, I guess it can stay. thanks for the input all.