Hi, a battery tender is a thing that you plug into an electrical outleter that hooks up to ur battery, you dont have to take ur batter out or anything. The tender has a little computer in it so its all automatic. The tender keeps ur battery fully charged all the time and will allow your battery to last a lot longer. There about 40 dollars, well worth the money.

 

Ok, got it. Thanks for the help.

 

I put a meter on the atv and here's what the readings indicated. I'm writing this from memory so I may be off a little.
Volt DC setting of 20:
- Just the battery = 12.53 (key off)
- Just the battery = 11.88 (key on)
- Battery positive to starter (no start button key off) = 12.52
- Battery positive to starter (Push start button with key on) = dropped as low as 1.0 but jumped all over before button was released.
- Just the Solenoid =11.87 (key on)
- Solenoid to starter (Push start button with key on) = dropped as low as 1.0 but jumped all over before button was released.

So, it sounds as though the solenoid (or starter?) could be the problem?

 

looks like to me that your batt can't take a load, do u have a load tester, u can get em an a local napa dealer abotu 70 bucks. well worth the money. i know adv auto parts will test batts but not sure about atv batts. a batt can be bad even thow a volt meter sais its puttin off over 12volts. keep us posted

bowz

 

I don't have one, but can get one to try it out. I went ahead and bought a new battery just to eliminate that as a possibility. The other was the original. I found a manual that I had bought a few years ago and it had some troubleshooting things to try. To test the starter, I disconnected the cable on top of the starter and put a jumper cable on the positive terminal of the battery and then put the other end of the jumper cable on the threaded post of the starter. The manual said it should turn over if the starter is OK. I didn't get any response at all. I tried it with the switch on and off and also push the button to see if that had some magical result. I tried it with a car battery without the car running and still nothing from the atv starter. So, I may of not have done something in the right order but maybe the starter is the problem. Very confusing to me.

 

what you were doing was bypassing the silenoid for the starter, what gives the starter is power and cuts the power. and if you had a charged batt it would have started it. if the starter was good. the clicking sound is the silinoid usually due to not enough juice in the batt. the reason your car batt didnt work is because you didn thave a ground hooked up to the atv.(or did u) so it coudlnt make a connection. which brings me to the thought that u need to check your grounds also, you could have a partial ground, corroded or lose, resulting in good enough connection to run the atv but not enough to turn it over. but being an 01 with orig batt, i'm prety sure thats it. 6 year life span for thows lil batts is good in my oppionon. i still have my orrig on my 00 sportsman and 02 400ex, they're hurten but i'm a cheep a$$ so i'm waiten. haha. keep us posted

bowz

 

You're right. I didn't have it grounded. I was following the directions line for line and it didn't say to ground it. I'll give that a try and let you know what happened. Thanks for the input

 

hold on, dont ground the positive, i was talking the car batt. u want to ground it to the frame, no paint can be in the way.

bowz

 

*neg to the frame, positive directly to starter (bypassing starter silinoide) surry

 

Ok, got it. I'm heading home for lunch and will try if I can. Or I'll try it tonight. Thanks