Jeff Comstock

Thanks, you were close. I found the white wire that goes to the battery and has the fuse in line had gotten pinched somehow and only had three strands left. Patched it and now everything's fine. Mech from New Zealand gave me the clue when he mentioned turning on the lights to get a few more rpms to a guy who posted about a similar problem with his 400

You're concerned about watts when amps is what you need to figure out. A standard light draws 12-13 amps where an LED of equal lumens draws 2-3 so if you get a 22" light bar it will draw less than 2 headlights and taillights. Watts is how lightbulb lumens are judged for output not draw 

Yeah Dave, it's always that low but, when I check my bosses 300 with the same meter it reads 12.35-79 with it running, even swapped coils this morning before work and still no joy

So it's been a while since I was on here begging for knowledge but....here I am again, like a bad penny.

So my 300 bayou was fine and I drive it close to 30 miles a day ( no joke, no license). I pulled over to light a cigar and drove 100 ft and started down a dip in the dirt road and it acted like it was out of gas (just filled the tank) but then when I tapped the brakes it started running fine.

Now it'll start but runs rough unless I turn on the headlights and brake light them it'll even out and at first it'll skip and backfire almost them it'll run fine untill it goes to idle them repeat above. If I sh** off the headlights it wants to die. My boss has the same 300 so I swapped battery and cdi and regulator with his and still the same jazz. Could it be the coil? Don't they do like old cars and just die? Also went I throw my voltmeter on the battery while it's running it sits at 9.87-.99 like it's not charging, did that even with different battery, reg., Cdi. Checked the grounds, all good. It's always been a rule that if a battery has only 9 volts then turning on the lights drains power and it runs worse. I'm confused like I just saw a churchmouse kick a barn cats butt

Ok, first things first... Happy Thanksgiving everyone and thanks for all the help and support. So, now down to the nitty gritty, found the problem, baby girl is running like brand new. 

The crazy readings I was getting from the pulse coil had the answer. When I bought the new stator and pulse coil from caltric I was really hoping I would be able to fix it, it WAS the coil. Somehow the blue wire got pinched almost in two where the wires go into the motor, just above the rubber gasket. Never would have seen it but for the deciding to chance the stator was bad. 

Wish I knew how to do video thingamabob on here I'd show y'all how sweet she runs

Yeah it ohms as good with the magnet on the far side away from the coil but again I get crazy readings when I turn it over, from -0.02 to 6.85 ohms at 20k

Sorry took so long to get back, between work and hunting for deer I been tied up. So on 20 volts my meter gets wild swings, from 0.00 to 0.06. if i turn it back instead of going all the way around again i get minus 0.01 then when I go past the pick up I get -0.03.  Thinking that's not normal, only got 0.05 at 20 volts once in bout 45 revolutions going slow as molasses by hand

You mean on ohms?  

No, tested ohms then put my drill on the recoil starter bolt and tested the pick up for the pulse to the cdi

No what meant was could the magnet on the stator that actually trips the pick-up coil be bad and yet the stator still generate power? I've heard the magnets can get weak if overheated or hit with something?

I've tested and retested everything from the wiring harness (3 times, OMG what a time consuming pain), put every part except stator and pulse coil on my buddies running 300 so it's either Gremlins or the pick-up coil. Almost worth the oil and gaskets to try that.So can a stator be putting out power yet not activate the pick-up coil? Is that possible? If it's wierd it'll happen to me, true story.

Yep new regulator and coil will fire all day on my buddies 300. Put it on last time I was working on it and let it run for 45 minutes or so to see if when the coil got hot it would mess up, it didn't. Ran fine.

Cranked it over using a drill (in reverse) and put my multimeter on DC volts and at about 650 rpm all it read was .01

Ok, so as I said, my rides been pull start for a while which makes some stuff harder to check but, finally got some spare time to get back to it and decided to take the recoil starter cover off and hook up a drill with a 14mm socket and pulled my spark plug so I could crank it over while testing stuff. 

Here's  what I found out... pulse coil isn't sending a signal to the CDI. Tested the stator and it's putting out 14.89-15.74 each wire ac volts. Ohmed the pickup at 0.43 set on 20k.

So at 10k would that be 215? Or 430?

They're both new from caltric and you can't adjust the air gap it's a set it and go part. Could the magnet on the stator that fires the pulse coil be bad but the stator still produce power? I'm assuming they can since that's a totally different magnet from the field magnet

Reads open on all three, no shorts there

Ok so I dug out my old analog multimeter that does 1 and 10 and got 485 ohms at the pick up coil, it says 390-590 so it ohms good, not trash like the cheap cdi I bought last year that was broke from the day it was made. The stator gives me wild fluctuations, from 0 to .4 ohms in like a second and only holds steady at 0. Thinking when ol boy put my new pick up coil in he didn't check the stator, I can get one cheap on Amazon from caltric.

I get  001 ohms on the stator on every wire at 2000 and 1.0 at 200. I'm assuming that taking that down exponentially to 1 on a meter would be .005 ohms, way below spec. Houston we have a problem, bad stator I'm thinking unless exponentially dropping my reading is wrong. I'll let y'all know

Part of my problem is my cen-tech meter don't do ohms at 1 or 10 like they keep referring to, mine does 200, 2000, 20k, 200k and 2000k. Time to get a new meter:(

Traced the white power wire to the regulator and all outgoing non-yellow(alternator) wires. My 300 has the 8 wire/ two fat round plugs, one for alternator, one for rectifier.when I checked the harness all where good and subsequent testing showed power levels,(checked against my buddies running 300,) were normal.

Yeah, so it blows out my starter relay robbing spark due to short idea:( it was one in a ten thousand anyways I figure). Thanks for the diagrams that'll be mega helpful, been meaning to buy avlymer manual 

Ok, so I had the key off and got  12 volts on the battery side nothing on starter side and at the plug in( two wires to starter button) trying to crank it I get 11 volts and .08respectively and 12.3 to the starter

Sounds like a plan, I'll check now and let you know asap, and thanks for the help. I see your name in oodles of posts so I assume you have mucho experience with quads. Thanks for taking the time to read this and give advice. 

Yes, would a bad starter relay keep it off? I work on cars, trucks and tractors like every other day but, motorcycle engine is a whole new world to me and I smart enough to know that.

Ok from bottom up, yeah I got new stator and pickup coil, new cdi, new clatric coil cdi is OEM, pricey but didn't want to take chances, stator and pickup are caltric also and tested fine, ran fine. As for the secondary coil getting hot and messing up, it works cold fine on another 300 but diddly on mine.

I was reading about starter relay supplying some power to the cdi when cranking but, mines been pull start only for quite a while now and no problems. The coil I just replaced started the same buddies 300 but ended up being dead. It's whyi wondered what the specs were.  Contacted caltric but they wanted to know my shipping number and haven't heard from them since I sent em that. 

Are they're coils different where they'd ohm different?

I've checked litteraly every wire in the harness, it's worth the money in electrical tape to rewrap em Just to be sure everything is kosher.

Ok, so I had no spark issues and foundy coil was bad. Bought a caltric coil, put it on and fired right up...for bout 20 minutes then it backfired once and again, no spark. I put it on my buddies 300 and it runs.  Checked my cdi the same thing, but still no spark. Now I got my old coil and  was ohming it and got reading of .01 on primary and 11.89 from POS to plug ( meter set on 20k ) new coil reads same primary but 12.83. what gives? It tests bad but runs my buddies 300, helllllllpppp