Hey all,

Still have my 03 wolverine 350.


Where to begin....

I'm trying to figure out why its missing really bad is the start of it all.

It was (still is, as you'll read later) missing real bad as soon as you got into it so I took it to my brothers place on my trailer because a mechanic from a Yamaha dealership is a friend of his and he was to stop by and look at it.

Well, I dropped it off at my brothers. He called me next evening and said I was right that the thing didn't have NO throttle at all. I told him when I dropped it off it had about less than 1/4 throttle then it would miss and just act real ugly. So I drove down and sure enough it had no throttle, it just acted like it had a rev limiter on it as soon as you touched the throttle. It idles fine and it starts fine.

The next day the mechanic stopped by and went straight for the stock carb, there he found a pinhole in the diaphragm so i shelled out 100 bucks for a new diaphragm assembly online and close to that for another battery as oddly enough the battery was going also. Mechanic put it all back together and still no throttle. So he got to checking things and here the parking brake switch was going bad. He Disconnected the 2 wires and held them apart and the throttle took right off (So he took the switch out and taped the wires apart). Took it home and 5 minutes into running it, it starts to miss again! Doing the same thing (I can putt around with it in the yard but as soon as i go to get on it it misses).

BTW, wasn't my battery, my starter is bad. Put new battery in and even jumped it from battery to starter and nothing so I need to Now rebuild the starter

The Mechanic adjusted my valves and timing chain also when he worked on it. But like I said, I picked it back up brought it home because it had full throttle and he thought it was fixed, rode it for 5 minutes or less and its right back to the beginning and I'm minus a few hundred bucks.

I don't think its a coincident that that dam PB switch went out just by putting it on the trailer for 8 miles on nice roads. Does anyone think the PB switch was causing all this to begin with and now that its NOT IN IT AT ALL could it be why its running the way it is?

The week before it started acting up I had just put a new CV joint and bearings in the left front. Plus I had to bend my hub back straight. I must did it jumping or riding wheelies. I don't know when or how because I did'nt notice the wobble until I took it out on the main road one day. 2 days after I fixed front end my 5 year old nephew was on it doing the loop in second gear and it started shutting off. I parked it. Then next eve when I rode it, is when it was missing real bad. Not only was it missing but about half throttle it acted like it had a rev limiter kicking in. So then, thats when I took it to my brothers.

Coil and plug are new also. I need to figure this out because I'm really getting tired of putting money into this machine for parts I don't need. I also need to stop letting Mechanics from my local Yamaha dealer work on it!

I think theres more to this PB switch but I'm not sure how smart the cdi is. If you all don't think its related any Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if this helps but it doesn't take long for the engine to get hot (but I think those 350 warrior blocks always seemed to run hot) you know like, don't ride with shorts on hot . My oil temp light does work but doesn't come on.



Thanks ahead of time!

 

Wirespider,

I had a similar problem this spring with my 02 Wolverine - I took mine to the dealer, they fiddled with the parking break lever and it works fine now. It seems like yours is PB related, but it's curious that your problem has returned after you disconnected the PB wires. If you haven't done so already, try a Google search of "yamaha wolverine parking brake rev limiter" and you'll find other forums and people who've worked through a similar problem. Hopefully, this'll help. Good luck - hope you get it sorted out without too much more heartache and frustration.

 

Sounds like a CDI problem to me. Especially since it worked well without the parkk brake wired in. And it seems to work some of the time, but after warmed a bit it starts to fail at different throttle settings. I vote CDI

 

I actually thought of the CDI also because of EXACTLY what you said (it did have throttle without the PB switch when I picked it up but after it warmed up a little it went south).

But I have this Yamaha "mechanic" telling me that when the CDI goes you cant even start your machine (This sales/mechanic is new to my Local Yamaha Dealer btw). So I'm thinking, why waste the 300 bucks (cuz what if hes right). I also thought maybe the voltage regulator.

So the cdi can act like that? What about the VR?

Thanks!

 

Welcome to electronics. Any electronic component can fail under high temps, normal temps, or even at low temps (too cold). Most are engineered to withstand a huge variety of conditions, but are only "so good" at lving through them. The CDI's in these are solid state, and cannot be repaired. That's the part that sucks. What typically occurs, is a connection within the CDI grows "open" when it gets to a certain temp. or a range around that temp. As with all things, when heated, they "grow". This applies to gaps as well as actual size or length of items. That's why when a screw gets seized, a mechanic can apply a greta bunch of heat. The gap between the screw and nut (or internally threaded part) should grow, along with the part/s. Thus giving room in the threads to allow for removal.

All that stuff is what is likely given your description of the problem. I'm a little wary of your local mech at this point. There has never been and likely will never be, just one symptom for a bad CDI unit.

 

Thanks Terellster!

My local Yamaha Dealer has always sucked. Between raping you on labor and not being able to diagnose the problem correctly I don't know why I keep trying.


Being the VR is 100 and the CDI is 300 do you think it would pay to change the VR out or in your opinion do you think its most likely the CDI?

Thanks!

 

I'm still voting on the CDI. Mainly because of the different RPM's and stuff.... (I hope I'm reading this all correctly).

It very well could be voltage regulator, but my gut tells me it's CDI.

Now,... just for kicks and giggles,.... go back and very carefully check all the plugwire connections. Everything involved, from the coil gorund, to the plug (since the plug is cheap, maybe even go to a different source and buy one more and replace it too, eliminating the plug being bad out of the box).

I've had a bad plug cap before producing similar symptoms. and I had a bad stator once,.... Now the stator problem was like the tech said of the CDI,.... It just died. While I was riding it though.... Quit and would not start again.... a mile from the truck and trailer..... Push... huff, puff,.... push a little more,... huff, puff,..... Sit on the 4 wheeler a while (over 100 degrees outside),..... Feel like you're gonna die,..... push,.... huff, puff.... you get the picture.... at least yours was at the house....

Fact is,... the only way to test high temp failures is to get them hot enough to fail.... If you have a way to verify these items fail (or don't fail). You'd be one step up from here....