Turns out my dealer, Turple Brothers in Red Deer aren't very nice. They'll gladly sell me a manual but won't give me any help otherwise. Given that I can buy parts online at half the price as them, I've decided to take all my ATV business elsewhere. Next new bike purchase will be from a dealer that appreciates my business and my ongoing maintenance needs without always seeing me as cash cow. Parts will come from that same dealer or online.

Turple Brothers used to be a great little bike shop with friendly staff, but seem to have morphed onto a bunch of grumpy, unappreciative *****. I'll vote with my feet.....

Okay, so the latest problem I'm having is my fully charged battery runs down and eventually the bike won't even start. It overheats because there's no power to the fan and I'm assuming it's an alternator problem. Even with a dead battery, all should work fine with power from the alternator, right???

2001 TRX350FM. email is ishcots@hotmail.com. The site I'll start buying parts from is here...

http://www.babbittsonline.com/...rand/7/Honda.aspx

 

right sounds like you do have either a stator problem or a loos connection somewhere...

 

I emailed you the charging system from the 2000-03 TRX350 PDF shop manual .. Read it and test it

 

Wow, great procedure. Had my son out in the garage tonight and am now suspicious of the regulator assembly. Was able to measure some significant ac voltage off the alternator, and no low or high resistance on the rectifier. It's late now, but i'll run this procedure after work tomorrow and am certain i'll find the culprit. Will let you know how things go.

In the meantime, many thanks. If this is typical of the shop manual, i'll put in an order for it tomorrow. (likely in addition to whatever I find wrong)

 

Exact same shop manual only in PDF format

 

Damn.... I followed the procedure and the battery checked out okay, but did have ~12mA leakage current that I tracked down to the digital dispaly cluster. I unplugged that and continued on with the trouble shooting procedure. All else checked out good. All resistance values and grounds are fine but, still not charging.

One thing that seems odd...

I changed the recoil spring out last week and re-installed the pulley. It seems now when i shut the machine down I can hear something slowly spin to a halt at the back end of the engine. Not sure if I'm only hearing now because the seat is off or if something is out of order in around the alternator or pulley assembly. the pulley and the starter work fine and nothing seemed out of the ordinary when it went back on. It was a very straight forward repair.

Tempted to pull the alternator....

 

Alternator/stator checks out fine with the .pdf you sent me Mech. Is there a specific test for the rectifier/regulator? I'm getting >10vac on the stator side of the RR on each yellow wire connector,(mid rpm) but still only battery voltage on the dc side of the RR.

2 questions..... is it likely that its the rectifier/regulator? and, where can i get the .pdf manual?

thanks mech....

 

There is no actual test for the reg/rec , you test everything else .. If you did all the tests and everything tests ok then your problem will probably be the reg/rec ...

As for a shop manual I see Clymer manuals listed on eBay , I'm not a fan of the Clymer manual having used both Honda & Clymer but it would be better than nothing ..

 

Makes sense, I'll replace the RR.

I'll order the Honda manual, which I do want and don't mind forkin out the chedda for, but the .pdf's would be very handy to print off and spread out over the garage when working on the thing. It's getting older and I assume it'll be in the garage more and more....

Now that the loonie is fisting the green back, I see machines are coming down in price in show rooms, so I think at least one 07 (foutrax rancher) is in the future before xmas, and possibly something bigger (for me) as well. But will also be keeping this 2001. (Great novice rides)

The Harley's in the basement for the year and we're gearing up for ice fishing season out here..... 6 weeks we hope!

Thanks again.

 

Fixed....

Paid twice the fair price for a new Rectifier/Regulator from Turple Bothers in Red Deer and the charging system is working great again.