I have a 2000 arctic cat 500 4x4 automatic I thought it was having issues with cold starts as the battery would crank and crank but not start. But if I start it with recoil it starts first pull. After letting the machine charge the battery for a while I can shut it off and it will start as long as its within a few hours. But every morning I go out there and it cranks for a while but not fast enough to start. So as far as i know the bike is draining somewhere. Any help would be great if someone could give me pointers so I can check simple/common things. I would like to avoid going to the shop for something minor. I Have replaced battery with no change

 

most people i know have had the regulator go to crap. In other words its grounding out. Ive had it go out on my 300 and others have had the same issue on their bikes. Test it first. Im not saying that its your problem but its worth a first look before you tear into other things. if it is the regulator, mine was $80.00.

 

few possibilities. check cable connections. possible loose cable on either end. also bad internally. probable bad regulator. it is located by the battery. put a good voltmeter on the battery and check voltage. try starting, see what the voltage drops to, also when engine is running see if voltage rises above 12.5 volts with engine running. if you see voltage dropping, you have a charging system problem. you can check cables with the voltmeter too. put the pos. lead on the battery end and the neg. end. crank and see what reading you get. you are checking voltage drop ( how much juice you are loosing through the cable). you don't want anything over a volt ( don't quote me on this reading). check for corrosion on the cable ends where the end is crimped to the cable. use a good quality volt meter when doing these type of checks. hope this helps

 

Put a volt meter on it. The BAT should read 12.5-13.1 volts sitting. When the CAT is running your stator/regulator should charge at 14.2-14.8.
Rev up the motor and put some DRAW on the system. - lights/winch/handwarmers...whatever ya got. If the VOLT reading drops to below 12.5 or LOWER...that's way to know if your stator/regulator are bad.

Also....trickle charge the BAT @1.5amp for a few hrs to ensure an accurate reading from the BAT.

My 2¢ Good luck

 

well I guess I should buy a volt meter ! I'm not a mechanic by any means, but I do believe that the machine is charging fine. I can put a dead battery in it pull start it let machine charge battery for a while and as long as I start it within a couple hours it will start with the battery but if I let sit over night it is nearly dead in morning. I did hoiw ever hear a buzz or humm when machine was shut off and I believe it was inside instrument panel. I was hoping someone knew of something that commonly drains a battery when shut off on this particular machine. Thanks for all help
guys.

 

So I got a volt meter and it says like 12 or 13 volts sitting and 14 to 15 running.Then drops almost a volt when i turn the lights on. but I could use help testing the cables I just dont get that part thanx for any input .

 

google voltage drop testing or check out this site. not very hard to do, but harder to explain how to do it.
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good luck.

 

just to let you all know, my new battery was defective. what a pain in the ***! a new battery doesn't always mean a good battery!

 

did you charge it enough before installing? i have had motorcycle batteries fail. hard to get the harley dealer to replace them. hope all is ok now.

 

Just charged it with specified charger untill light came on saying "charged" brought it back and exchanged it> was purchased at fleet farm. I'm just glad it's over would have felt really stupid bringing to dealer.