Rancher won't charge
 

Well I've got an 05 rancher 350 that won't charge the battery. (new battery and rectifier) With the ground cable off (pull started the motor) and checking voltage from it to the positive cable it shows around 3 volts from the stator, but when I touch the cable to the battery it doesn't add the voltage to the battery according to my meter?.... I did the same test to another 350 rancher and it added the voltage to the existing battery voltage(12.5) bringing it up to 14.8. why won't this one do the same thing?. Everything seems to be okay...I'm stumped...bad stator/alt? man I hate guessing

I can pull start it and it runs fine. Turn on the headlights and according to the meter they start draining what's left in the battery. I charged it over night and it'll start fine until the battery gets too low then it's back to the pull starter.

Anybody got a test I can do on the stator to find out something?

Helloooo?....Man fixin to drop 200 bucks here on a shot in the dark......anybody?

I wish I could help you but our rancher doesn't charge so good either. I've resigned myself to a trickle charger and carrying the battery I took out when I went through the same scenario you did in the trailer. I figured but not driving myself to drink with the charging issue i'll have more time to stress over when the carburetor is going to act up again!~!!!%^!$*&!%^&

in case you guys haven't checked out LynnEdwards' posts in chinese section, you might give it a try. he's got excellent instructions and gives a lot of good insight and guidance. sure some is brand specific, but he also gives a lot of generic info that should help you out as far as testing. sorry, i can't copy and paste his stuff, that would be plagiarism. but seriously, check it out, you may find it very helpful.

I suspect you should be getting a lot more than 3 volts from the stator.

If you unhook the stator, what kind of ohms do you get between the legs? Any continuity to ground on any leg?

Do you have a manual?