I switched the two wires on the coil and got my 12 and 0!!!!! The key off I got numbers on one wire and and 0 on the other!! So the start button does get power when its supposed to now right? What do I need to check now? Thanks for your help this far I would have already bought so many parts that I didn't need!

 

My comments embedded in blue:

 

Switching the two solenoid activating coil wires should make no difference. Therefore I think we have some measurement error going on. Please revisit this. What you post isn't making any sense other than simple measurement error.

If you can indeed get a solid 12 volts across the solenoid activating coil (one wire is 12 volts while at the same time the other wire is zero volts) then the next question is whether your solenoid goes "click". But I suspect there is measurement error going on. This is partly based on the fact you've correlated this with reversing two wires which shouldn't have made any difference.

 

Fluke 87
If the red and black are not touching on ohms it reads 0.L
000.4 is what it says when I put the two together.
I am not sure if thats the answer you were talking about but that is what I got!

 

You have a really nice meter. One of the nice things about this meter is that it auto scales. It picks the proper scale to use that always gives you the maximum accuracy possible. So often novices make measurement mistakes because they are on the wrong scale - either too sensitive (truncating readings), or too course (throwing away accuracy).

I ran out of steam last night before answering this. So tonight you're first on the list. I expect I will run out of steam again before finishing my back log tonight. I hope people understand....

Your readings are good for measuring ohms. OL is short for Open Loop. Or just open, or no connection, etc. The near zero reading 0.4 ohms is just showing the resistance of your meter leads, plus maybe a calibration issue in your meter. It should read closer to zero than that. So just keep this in mind when you make really low ohms measurements. If you (just for an example) are trying the measure the primary ignition coil resistance, and you measure 0.8 ohms, then you subtract the 0.4 ohms you got with the shorted meter probes - leaving 0.4 ohms for the coil resistance. This removes the error you got when you should have measured zero ohms.

Back to the subject at hand... I still don't know if you really got 12 volts across the solenoid actuating wires. When you're trying to start the quad with the ignition on, brake light lit up, and the start button pushed, you need to have 12 volts acros the two smaller starter actuating wires. So with your meter set to measure DC volts (like this):



Put the black lead on the negative battery terminal, and the red lead on each solenoid activating wire, and measure the voltage while the start button is pushed, the ignition is on, and the brakes are applied (brake light kit up).

What do you measure on each wire? Do you hear a click coming from the solenoid?

 

I did test the two smaller wires (not the red ones) and got 12 both times on DC. They didn't change at all whether the start button was pushed or not. No clicking sound at all.

FYI - I was trying to be brilliant and burned my finger cause I mixed two wires that should be mixed (don't know what I was thinking - did that with the key on) . Lesson learned, I promise! Luckily I didn't burn anything up (there was smoke)! I hooked things back the way they were and my brake light still works!!!

What does this mean that I they are both reading 12 volts?
Is my starter relay (solenoid) bad?

Thanks for all of your patience and help - Im just happy someone is walking me through all the steps - and checking for my errors !(I wasn't getting a good connection with the safety pin and the copper wire in the middle - I finally got that part down now!)

 

In hotel room with unusable Internet access. Will reply tomorrow when I get back. I am using my iPhone which is too crude to reply in depth

 

This is good. One of those two smaller wires at the solenoid (ignition on, brake light on, and start button pushed, as always) will really be hooked up to 12 volts from the postive battery post. The other wire *should* be grounded when the start button is pushed, but I suspect it is not. You report that both solenoid wires read 12 volts. This is because one of them is tied to 12 volts through the fuse, ignition switch, and brake switch. The other one is 12 volts because it is being pullled up through the 3 or 4 ohm solenoid activation coil resistance. *This* wire needs to get grounded by your start button, and I don't think that is happening. We need to find out which wire this is. We don't want to ground the wrong wire in the next test since if we ground the high side wire we will essentially be trying to short out the battery which will pop the main fuse.

Do your solenoid voltage tests exactly like you did before, only this time with the solenoid unplugged. This will be easier since you can probe the harness connector directly. Without the internal solenoid activation coil resstance pulling up the ground side wire it should read zero volts. In other words the test should reveal that oneof those two wires (solenoid unplugged) should go to 12 volts, and the other should have zero volts on it.

If you do get to that point, then the next step is to plug the solenoid back in and *ground* the wire that read zero volts before. You'll have to use the safety pin method of probing the wire copper core (which you are an expert at now ), and short that to ground. That could be the negative battery terminal, or a good clean connection to the quad frame. If there is paint or corrosion on the frame you will have to dig in to bare metal.

When you do this, does the solenoid click, and does the starter turn?

Earlier (I'm pretty sure anyway - when I'm really busy my posts tend to meld together with others) - I think you reported that one of the two small solenoid wires goes to the brake switch, and the other goes to the start button. If my memory isn't out of wack (which is possible) then the wire that goes to the start button is the one that needs to be grounded to activate the solenoid (along with ignition on, brake light, etc.)

 

Ok, I got the 12 on the green and yellow, and 0 on the blue and white wire. That was without the relay and the ignition on. With the ignition off both were 0. If I understood right, I put a wire from the blue and white and grounded it - it bypassed the start button all together and tried to start the engine.

 

Yes, if you grounded the blue white wire and the starter cranks, then this says your start button (or any associated wiring) is not working. It could be a bad switch, or a bad wire.

Is your start button out in the open all be itself? Or is it part of a multifunction switch on the left handlebar? The next step is to find the blue white wire at the start button and see if you have 12 volts there (solenoid plugged in, and ignition on, brake light lit up...)