I inherited this machine and a donor machine and am working on getting it going - it had a bad motor so swapped in the motor from the donor machine (both 94 sportsmans)

anyway - after some tinkering with some carb trouble I was running the motor for basically the first time longer than a minute....

all was great until I noticed the speedo light and dash lights were way too bright (waay too bright!), then before my brain could even process what was happening - every light burned out...headlights, taillight, dash lights, speedo light.....

grabbed a multi meter and the voltage everywhere (light sockets, battery etc) was over 20 volts...

any idea why or how this is even possible??? Both machines are the same year and model and the stator harness was exactly the same - same number of wires and same colors...I double checked that I didn't mis-splice any of them.

Is there a voltage regulator or some wiring issue that could be causing this or is it only the stator?

What wires should I test on the stator (and what values should i look for)? thanks....

I've got dozens of hours and no small amount of $ into this wheeler project and really need a hand trying to sort this out....I'm at a loss.

 

Do you have the battery hooked up? With no battery the voltage will spike.

 

what - really??

Well the cables are connected to the battery, but it's no good (not just dead, it's bad)...I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. I've been jumping it with a car battery while I rebuild the whole machine. The jumper cables probably fell off while the engine is running due to vibration.

Tell me more - is this really the issue? Is a bad battery the same as no battery?

 

Could leave the car battery jumpered in to see if it levels out. The regulator is what should regulate voltage. The stator puts out AC, should have like 25-30 vac coming out of it. It is rectified to DC by the rectifier, and regulated by the regulator to 13-14.5 vdc.

 

Can be, battery acts as a buffer, try a new one and see what it charges, if still too high there is a voltage regulater, probably in front of radiator.

 

did you even check to see if the voltage regulator is hooked up? your lucky thats not a newer style speedo or it would just fried it for sure at big bucks. the regulator is what controls the amount of voltage so i would check for that first as mentioned above. good luck.

 

yeah you can say that again ... what does the regulator look like and where would I find it?

 

Polaris parts lookup. Looked for a regulator but can't find. Wondering if it may be built into the cdi assy. I see a rectifier but no regulator.

http://parts.polarisind.com/Browse/Browse.asp

 

ok I got a battery and it's charging now...so we'll find out more later

there is a regulator shown on the wiring diagram, but I can't locate it...

as a side question - anyone found a cheap easy source for the panel bulbs on these units (neutral, reverse, high beams, hot light, oil light)? They are a funky bayonet style bulb that I can't find...I'm afraid to ask what the dealer wants for them since the dang speedo key was $16.

 

looks to be fixed - I can't believe having the battery dead makes that much of a problem...hate to roll one and damage a battery or something! almost got all the light bulbs replaced...now if I can fix the brake problem I'll be putting stuff back together!

thanks for the help