Hello I am new and need help trouble shooting. I have a 2003 500 ho sportsman. I ran it 3 days ago plowing snow with no problems. I tried to start it the next day not even a pop. This machine has always ran good, no sputtering, good on power nothing that would lead to thinking of engine problems. I checked for spark and didn't see any, put new plug in still no spark. So then I reseached ATV web sites for no spark infomation. I read one that said his rewind rope was broke for a short while using it and part of the rope was wrapped up in the flywheel bending something ( I can't find the article anymore). This person said he used a dollar bill to set the distance between the flywheel. That was the cause of his spark problem. My starter rope has been broke for about 4 hours of running and thinking this must be it I took off the cover to the fly wheel and found parts of rope in the starter gear and rope fuzz around the flywheel and the black magnet part that has wires to it. Thinking that my black part was the one he adjusted I removed the 2 screws but found that they are not slotted. I put everything back together and had spark. It still won't start and it is getting gas, not even a pop from the motor. Choke the hell out of it, wet plug no fire. I put gas in carb once, wet plug no fire. I shot starter fluid in carb still nothing. It looks like a good strong spark to me. Can the coil be bad and still have spark but not fire. Can the statter or something under the flywheel be bad and still have spark and not fire. I didn't remove flywheel because not being sure how to. Is it left hand threads? Do you need a puller? Can it be removed without a puller? I didn't do a compression test because when it ran it ran perfect. I hope this isn't confusing the way its written. thanks for any help John

 

Not very often that this happens,but pull the flywheel bolt and see if the woodruff key is still lined up with the slot in the flywheel. They have been known to shear flywheel keys and jump timing. It's best to get a steering wheel/harmonic balancer puller to remove the flywheel to see if any debris is under the flywheel/stator area. The pulse coil(the black part outside of the flywheel you found) is not adjustable as you've found out,BUT the bracket holding it can be tapped"lightly" inward if has been bent outward by the rope which might allow it to start. If after you clean this area up and replace the flywheel,but it still wont start,it might be best to do a resistance check on the stator. The stator wires go to the cdi module under the front panel. The pulse coil resistance white wire to white/red wire should be 97 ohms, Red to Green 3.2 ohms, Black/red to green should be 446 ohms. These readings are + or - 20%. OPT

 

thank you for the suggestions, is the nut on the flywheel left handed threads, what are some ways to get the nut off. Other than an air impact is there a way to lock/hold down the crank shaft and use a ratchet wrench. thanks again

 

Just a regular nut,loosens counter clockwise. Real easy if you have an impact. If you don't have an electric or air impact it's a little hard. Have heard of some guys that came into the shop pulling the clutch cover and using a tire iron through the front clutch into the foot well frame to lock the crank shaft. A whole lot of trouble this way! OPT

 

One time on a snowmobile my dad and I stuck a rope down the sparkplug hole when the piston was all the way down. We put the wrench on and the crank stopped turning when it tried to compress the rope. I don't know if that would work on your quad but we thought it was better than jamming something in the clutch.

 

Thanks for the help Tech,
I removed the flywheel with a electric impact and a puller, no problem. There wasn't a lot of fuzz and no damage to any of the stator from the pull rope. I wasn't very confident that cleaning this was going to solve my problem. I did notice a light film of oil on the outside diameter of the stator and inside the flywheel. This had to come from the rope being spun by the flywheel because the seal was tight with no oil was on the shaft. I wiped everything down and "fixed the rope", ha ha right. The spark looked the same but it fired right up and I plowed for about 45 minutes. Thanks again
John

 

The oil was probably the grease from under the friction plate that had melted if the seal wasn't the reason for the oil. If you removed the friction plate bolt from the recoil and then re installed it,it's best to locktite the threads as it can vibrate out and make a mess of things. If you didn't remove the bolt, then don't worry about it! Anyway,glad it didn't tear up anything and you're up and running. OPT

 

my quad will start with the pull start, but not the key. i have taken the pull start housing off and cleaned up everything, bought a new battery, put in a new spark plug and checked for spark. it has lots of spark when i turn the key on. when i attach a battery charger to the battery on the quad, it will start right away. everyone i have talked to cant help. i would appreciate any insight on the problem. thanx

 

got a 2000 polaris 500 6x6
if i pull the single black ground off by brain box it will fire
took off kill ,start switch the resistor on back of switch was burnt
replaced switch still wont fire with ground hooked up

 

Then it's entirely possible the kill circuit in the cdi itself is bad causing the problem. If you know the ignition switch is ok,and since you replaced the left switch this is probably the case. I've had this happen before,some customers ok'd a new cdi,other said that they would just "choke it down" to kill it so they could avoid the expense of a new cdi..