1994 Polaris Sportsman 400 Voltage Regulator?

[chevyman26]

Hello! I just bought a 94 sportsman 400 from a friend, and it runs great, but absolutely nothing electrical works on it..I'm suspecting the voltage regulator. Does anyone know how to test them on this model, or have a link to a repair manual? Thanks for any help you can give!!

[yamaman]

put a volt meter on batt race up motor and see if voltage goes up to 13-14 volts. if so regulator is OK. how is the batt ? does it start with batt or do you have to pull start it. if it starts with batt check fuses and connections.

[chevyman26]

has to be pull started now. last night I took the batt. out, filled it back up with water and put it on the charger..we'll see what happens with that tonight...I guess I should have covered that first before asking, especially since the winch doesn't even work, and I shouldn't need the regulator for that, right? It should just work off the batt...

[yamaman]

if your batt is dead nothing electrical is going to work . you said fill batt up with water. how low was it? you should put distilled water in battery not reg water. also if it was really low the battery is probably junk. try to charge batt with your charger. install batt put voltmeter on batt and try to start. if voltage drops below 10 volts battery is junk. pull start and see if voltage goes up to 13-14 volts when you race up engine. if so voltage regulator is good. buy new batt and go riding. good luck and let us know what you find.

[Ajmboy]

I'm leaning towards a bad battery...Keep us posted!

* Added full year and manufacturer to thread title.

[chevyman26]

ok, battery was very low.yea it was distilled water I filled it with. Charged it for a little over 24 hours, then it sat unhooked for about 12 hours, and had only about 5 volts when I checked it, so yea, battery is bad.But..then I hooked up a good one from another machine.Then the electric start worked, but nothing else electrical worked.No lights, no 4x4, no override, and no winch...but I'm sure the winch is just a bad switch, because it is a stand alone system, all the wires have continuity at each side of the switch, and the winch will run off of jumper cables hooked right to it. But the rest of it...? All the fuses and a circuit beaker are all good.Usually I'd buy the repair manual, but I don't plan on having this one around for long

thanks for all the help!

[Ajmboy]

I would still replace that battery with a good one as it's obviously bad, and check to make sure that you are getting power out to the main fuse/circuit and all your connections are good. If all of those things are not working, you might have a bad connection, fuse, relay, etc..start pulling things and seeing if they are corroded also.

[lhowes]

I can relate. I just got a 94 400L 4x4. It ran good, started with the electric switch. A couple days later the battery went dead. So, got a new battery, and the same thing happened. So, got online in a forum and some one sent me this message. I checked out the red wire on the voltage regulator, and it was broken from corosion, so fixed it, put it back together, started it up and the lights got bright and i ran if for 10 minutes up the road and shut it off, and it started right up with the switch. So, here is what was sent to me, i hope this helps you, as it fixed my non charging problem.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

i've seen this problem alot on older polarises, ok, first recharge your battery than remove the front cover in front of the headlight. look down in front and on top of the radiator you will see a black electrical box (thats the voltage regulator). look at the electrical connector red wire for white or green sulfation, i've had a few that looked connected until you unplug the red wire and the connector was corroded, i cut the connector off and soldered the wires together and covered with electrical tape. then using my multimeter on the dc voltage scale, checked the voltage at the battery, should read 12.6 volts key switch off. if your voltage regulator/black box is good than with the engine running re-check the battery voltage. you should be reading around 14.3 to 14.6. if the voltage drops even with increases rpms than change the voltage regulator.

[chevyman26]

Thanks for the reply! I had talked to a guy locally who used to sell Polaris out of his garage, and he had 1 of these for his personal machine. he told me that he actually kept a stock of voltage regulators on a shelf just for this. he went through 4 regulators in is personal machine in the time that he owned it.

I was luckier..I ended up finding that the wires right off the battery were so corroded that they almost crumbled apart when stripped, in addition to a totally shot battery. after fixing the wires and replacing the battery the only problem I have now is 3 bulbs that are burnt, otherwise all is good!

thanks to all for your replies! been meaning to get back on here to update.