I'm Ok mechanically but a little dense when it comes to the electrical stuff. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. My battery drains after a few hours of riding. At first I thought it was the battery but had it checked at an auto store & was told it's good (??).

I need to know where to go next to find out where the problem is. I have a volt meter but do not want to start replacing electrical parts because I might think that's the problem. I put the voltmeter across the battery & got battery voltage before it drained with the engine running - no more or less! Is there a progression of items to check to find the correct part that is bad?

Thanks for any help you can supply.

 

OOOOPS should be an '01 Sportsman.

My delima. I have a manual that says to check the voltage regulator as one of the steps but I cannot locate a voltage regulator on any of the drawings. Is there one on this model? If not what do I do?

 

Pretty sure its up in front of the rad. Should be able to access it by taking off front rack and plastic piece that gets you to the rad filler cap. look in there on the clutch side of the machine

 

As mentioned mounted in front of radiator kinda sideways on the brush guard. A lot of times the red wire or green disconnects because of vibration. If this is the case plug back in and tape connectors then see if charging about 14vols or so. If not make sure the red wire from the harness going into the reg/rectifier has voltage,if it does then replace regulator/rectifier as its not sending voltage back to battery! OPT

 

I checked the battery voltage (postive cable disconnected) before starting it up last evening & got a 12.46 v reading. I reconnected the cable, started it and tried to measure the voltage at a high speed to see if it was charging. I got no change in voltage. Ran the ATV for 2 hours (mowing) and diconnected the positive cable while it was running - still ran, did not shut off. So the stator is good from what I have read. Then I shut off the motor and measured the battery voltage. It was 12.76 - so it must have been charging. Right now I am baffled as to what is happening. Not sure where to go from here.

Have not looked for the voltage regulator yet.
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DON"T disconnect battery while running!!! can cause major electrical problems. Check connections on regulator /rectifier,could be just an unplugged wire. 9 out of 10 times the reg/rectifier is the culprit whether wires are unplugged or faulty,(if red lead on regulator has power and battery not charging 14 volts,REPLACE regulator,PLUS you say you have had the battery load tested and shows to be good? P.S. BAD regulators can charge very little,no charging at all ,OR can overcharge when shorted out,which will eat up batteries! OPT

 

Ran the ATV for the last 2 weeks without any problems with the battery voltage. Over the weekend the battery voltage dropped to around 8 volts while I we riding which set off a series of events including overheating because the fan didn't have enough voltage to run.

When recharging the battery I found at least two of the cells were low on battery fluid. The battery charged OK. Could I have a bad battery?.

I ran the amps test outlined in the manual & it was OK. Then I ran the charging test with the voltmeter acorss the battery while reving the engine & the voltage jumped up to 14 volts plus. I thought I saw an 18 volt spike also. Appears to me that the charging system is working OK. Also appears that it may be it is intermittent. Could it be the regulator stops working when it get hot??

Should I replace the voltage regulator (which I still haven't found) or the battery. Any suggestions will be helpful. As I mentioned above the battery tested good at the local auto shop. Someone told me there was a regulator relocataion kit but I haven't seen one for the 2001 Sportsman 400.

Any other ideas??

Thanks.

 

Just have the battery load tested!! Any auto shop can do it. If bad,replace and charge the new battery at least 2-3 hrs at 2 amps or if you have a trickle charger even better. Then after installation and running,check voltage at battery. If doesn't have between 14-14.5 volts OR charges more than say 16 volts,replace the regulator rectifier!! READ my earlier post on regulator location!! Good luck OPT