I recently bought a 96 Polaris Sportsman 400l 4x4 atv. I bought it to plow the driveway. I was told it didn't run, but got it running very well just a cleaning of the carb. Every time I pressed the electric start it clicked and never turned. So I used the recoil. Well then the recoil broke so I bought a used one. When I went to remove the old one and put on the new one the gear in the recoil are in the recoil area have rust on them so no one drained the water apparently. How does this affect the recoil. I put the other one on and then days later the rope broke on that one. It became harder to start. Is there are way to clean off the rust? Should this make a difference? Now back to the electric start. I thought it was the battery so I put the one in from my Raptor 660 and it didn't start. I checked the Polaris battery in my Raptor and it worked. So it's not the battery. Any ideas? The other thing is all the light don't work. I was wondering it there may be a short or what? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

If you're handy with a volt/multi meter, ensure that you're getting 12v to the starter solenoid. Since "it's clicking", you're getting some voltage to it; you just want to ensure that it's enough and not a bad/corrdoed wire.

If the voltage is good, the most likely candidate is the solenoid. A check for the solenoid that can be done on many starters is to supply 12v and ground to the starter directly from a battery bypassing the solenoid and the starter should spin.