My wheeler was parked outside in 20 degree weather. I had been sold a battery warmer that ended up not being the correct one and it burnt a hole in the bottom of my battery. Not realizing this and needing to plow snow I in accidentally hooked up my battery charger incorrectly. The fan immediately starting running and I heard a buzzing noise. I immediately unplugged it, investigated further and saw condition of the battery. I bought a new battery and installed and it started right up. The speedometer works fine and all lights etc work. HOWEVER.... The AWD indicator on the speedometer stays on regardless of the switch position for the AWD. The AWD is not working. I've verified the switch works and is sending 12v to the front differential, but I'm not hearing anything happen. When backing up the AWD indicator stays on and the machine does the normal bogging down unless the yellow button is pushed. Any ideas on what to check or if the speedo might have something fried? Also here is a link I thought some of you might like about the front diff. Also does the ECM or the surepower ECM control any AWD functions? My local dealer has been no help.

http://www.amsportworks.com/pdfs/UTV...A-Hilliard.pdf

http://www.hilliardcorp.com/media/18...heel-Drive.pdf

 

Once the fan started running the ecm was probably fried! Ecms can cause all sorts of problems as it controls mainly the charging,fan circuit,power to the ignition switch and speedo and aux power,but can affect other areas. Rather than throwing parts at it here's a pdf service manual for 5 bucks that can help you eliminate problems including the speedo and charging. And to answer your question yes the awd circuit goes through the speedo and if it's messed up you wont have awd. One fix on speedos that didn't work at all was to jump the brown white wire from the speedo harness to a good brown( ground) wire to restore awd function.I would do that yet on yours with out going through the check list in the manual.It's a 2005 model which yours essentially is.2005 Polaris Sportsman 500 Service Manual PDF Download
Also you can look at this video on one method to restore awd function when grounding is the main issue.Plus since yours is a centralized awd you can't over look the issues on plastic roll cage cracking problems on these models.A lot to check out,but the manual will help.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try the grounding trick, however my machine only has one of those connectors and it's a brown/white wire and a grey wire and it goes to the Hilliard. My speedo works fine, all my lights work, charging is working fine also. My only issue is the persistent awd indicator on the dash and no AWD. I'm wondering if I somehow fried the armature in the Hilliard.

 

Also do you know what's with the bundle of green wires and the bundle of white wires with a female spade on the ends that are not hooked up to anything?

 

Spare wires for different models with other optional equipment. Cheaper to run a harness this way for lower line models all the way up to fully equipped models. Saves on having several different harnesses. Same as what you'll find on a lot of autos and their spare wires..

 

After playing around with my multimeter I determined that even though I was showing voltage on the wires going to the coil on the hillariad, the ground was insufficient. I spliced in a 14 gauge wire to the ground circuit and fixed my problem. The AWD turns on and off with the switch. The only quirk is the AWD indicator staying on all the time. With a speedometer costing almost $300 I can live with that! Thanks for the help.

 

Disconnect the main harness from the speedo for a few minutes and then hook it back up. Speedo has constant voltage to one red wire for memory even with the ignition off,but you may be able to reset it and get rid of the constant awd signal.Glad that grounding solved the problem on the awd.