I recently had a couple of wires melt in the wiring harness. The Brown wire (12V positive, I assume)that leads to the contact side of a relay located under the left rear fender well, and the black wire that leads from the contact side of the same relay and then up to the carburetor. It looks like the black wire at the carburetor was touching the engine and shorted out, causing the the bike to do weird things. Holding it steady at mid-throttle, the engine would rev up and down by itself, then die, and then I noticed the acrid smell of burnt insulation. The 30 amp fuse blew, as well. I replaced the wires and positioned them so they couldn't touch the engine and everything seems to be back to normal. (The bike is out of warranty, so I had to do it myself) A few questions:
1. What does the relay and box under the left rear fender do?
2. What's with all of the wires to the carburetor? Smog control? Mixture?
3. Has anyone else had this problem?
4. Does anyone know of a good shop manual for the Prairie?

I'm proud to say that this is the only problem I've had with the Prairie, it has been one heck of a bike thus far.

 

jrallen1 The problem your having is most likley the wires on your carb. This controls your electric carb heater,chances are that it will only blow the fuse when your praire is in sub freezing conditions. the box on the left rear fender controls that function,yes it has happend before.you can purchase a short wire harness from kawasaki so you dont have to worry about your wiring work however talk to your local kawa dealer If they are willing they could help on warranty,as this probally would not show up until it was cold enough for the heater to kick on ( did you know your prairie had such a feature??) greencow 88tecate kz900 car tire dragbike 1428cc

 

You have been a great help! After determining that the wire indeed feeds a carb heater of some sort, I realized that I had never fired up my Prairie in extremely cold weather before. I was in the mountains of north Alabama helping move downed trees when it happened. It was 16 degrees outside that morning!. (That's extremely cold where I'm from)Apparently the wire was shorted out against the motor for a while, but never had voltage applied to it until that morning. I 've already fixed the problem myself and everything seems to be ok. I'll check with the dealer and see if I can get some help with the new harness like you said. I would like to have my bike as original as possible. I stopped by the dealer yesterday to ask about the function of that box and relay, I showed them the stuff on a Prairie they had on the floor. The kid from the service department told me it controlled the rev limiter for reverse. I kinda knew right off that was B.S., but what do you expect from a snot-nosed young-un calling himself a mechanic? That episode left me a little worried about getting dealership service from them.

Again, thanks alot, you've been a great help. I feel much better about the problem being fixed now.

 

JR,

Check with your local Radio Shack or even the Automotive Department at Wal-Mart. You should be able to find plastic harness material that is made to protect wires from such damage. I have seen two basic types of harness. The first appears as a corrugated tube with a slit down the side so it can be slipped over the wires. While the second appears as a coiled strip of plastic that wraps around the wire as if you were taping them up.

Both types will only cost you a few bucks for several feet of the stuff.

 

Do all 300 have this feature?

 

DaveC - While I was at the Kawa shop I looked at a 300 Prairie 4x2 and it had the carb heater as well. The wires were the same as on mine, but it looked like they were a little further away from the block, mostly due to the way the wire was looped. I also noticed the same set-up on a friend's Yamaha Big Bear 400 4x4 this weekend. His bike had a much longer spacer between the carb and engine block, so I don't imagine that this would ever be a problem for him. I'm not sure about the Bayou 300's, But they do use pretty much the same engine as the Prairie, if I'm not mistaken.