SXR "Buzzing" while pressing the start button;Solved, hopefully!

[Proformance1]

We were riding for about two hrs Sat afternoon. Nose stabbing, inverted subs, trying to complete a good roll, etc. Pancaked a failed BR attempt from about 10'. It ripped the hood latch open, the hood straps held the hood on. Took on a lot of water upside down while I swam back. Flipped it over let the water pump out and bumped it. It started after many attempts, left the lanyard off, thats why it took so long. Ran it back to shore and bombed around for about 3 minutes before removing the hood to check stuff out. I broke the gas tank check valve, so we took it in and put a new one in. When I went to fire it back up, nothing but a buzzing noise when I hit the start button. We figured it was water in the elect box or a bad starter solenoid.
Brought it home and started ripping it apart. Elect box is dry, I didn't try shorting the soleniod so I tried putting the starter directly to the batery. Nothing. Pulled the starter, put it on the battery, nothing. Maintenance charged the battery, and it was fine in about 20 min. Checked voltage at 12.5V Tried the starter again, wired directly to the battery. Nothing....

Took the starter apart, looked like new on the inside, put it back together, tested it on the battery, and it spun fine. Put it back in the motor and ran the starter off the battery and it spun the motor over fine, with no plugs in it.

WTF? Bad starter, intermittent? Bad battery? Bad luck?

 

[Dirtybird]

My brother has the SAME problem with his SXI Pro. Is it buzzing in the electrical box towards the top?! That's where his is. We tap the top of the box with a screwdriver or small hammer and it fixes it for a little while. :dunno: We have another box we may throw in it to try it out. Also charged the battery and that seemed to help. Also check your battery cables. There could be corrosion on the battery terminals

 

[Proformance1]

Yep buzzing near the top of the box. That is where the solenoid is.
I have worked on a polaris in the past that did a similar thing, smack the solenoid hard enough and they were fine. What freaked me out was the fact that just trying to start the starter directly off the battery didn't work.

Could be a cable or corosion issue! Thats what one other person suggested, a bad neg cable or connection.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Thats a pretty sure sign of a bad starter solenoid or bad battery+ cable,the strater soleniod is easy enough to test.Take it out,take a volt ohm meter on x1 resistance scale put one lead on each of the posts then hook the black lead to ground and the brown lead to positive.the solenoid will click and you should have zero resistance on the meter.

 

[D-Roc]

did you happen to burn out the starter trying to start it for a long time without the lanyard plugged in?

 

[superramjet]

check and retighten your battery connections

 

[Frosty]

it was really strange because when we pulled the starter out and connected it direct to the battery at first it didn't spin at all. then once we pulled the starter apart for inspection and put it back together it spun off the battery just fine.

when we put the starter back in the motor (left the plugs out) and hooked the battery to the starter directly - nothing. Then we we used jumper cables to connect directly to both the positive and negative posts on the starter to the battery - not using the oem cables - spun just fine.

never tested the starter relay though. Brian, you should check that tonight anyway.

 

[THRUST]

it is usually a bad ground cable check those could be lose or coroded.

 

[Proformance1]

There was some corosion on the neg post of the battery. I'm going to test the starter solenoid, and cables tonight. At least I'm getting better at ripping apart, and putting this thing back together!! I need to buy stock in a zip tie company though. LOL

In hind sight, the starter may not have started directly off the battery because of the corosion on the post. When Frosty pushed the neg post of the battery against the starter, it finally spun. Of course, this was one of the last things we did. Could have definitely been corosion related.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

One of the neatest things I ever learned about on electrical troubleshooting was the voltage drop test.It will pinpoint problems like this in a hurry.Check out the link below it details it better than I could.The neat thing is it will tell you when components are bad before they actually go bad and no longer work.



http://www.aa1car.com/library/voltage_drop_testing.htm

 

[IceRocket1286]

my sxr will do the same thing if my battery terminals are not getting a good connection with the ground or positive cables. It happend to me 2 weekends in a row at a race on the line. Needless to say it was not fun.

 

[Proformance1]

Ok, so it sounds like with a wire brush and some baking soda, I could have saved myself from tearing the elect box out and apart, taking the factory pipe off, removing and taking apart the starter. Nice!!! :261:
I will still check everything out by doing a voltage drop test, but I'm going to clean everything first. Sounds like the corrosion on the neg terminal screwed me, even after I pulled the starter. It makes sense that after Frosty pushed the battery against the starter it made contact and turned. What was weird was the fact that the first time I hooked the starter to the battery direct using the ground cable and starter pos cable it sparked like crazy, but did nothing. Then the second and third times, not even a spark, nothing!! I figured it was a rotor and stator dead short in the starter, but it was probably just a bad connection.:crazy:

 

[WFO Speedracer]

That voltage drop test is the bomb because it does not measure resistance,it measures current flow,which is greatly diminished by having too much resistance.

 

[Proformance1]

Got it running again today, blew the day off at work. It was a coroded negative post on the battery. I wire brushed it, then used some baking soda with brush, sanded the nut under the post, and put dielectric grease all over it. I works like a champ. There was another electrical issue at the same time, which was driving me nuts. The ignition switch has three positions, blowsion bilge switch, one went bad. So I was chasing this for a while, when I figured out that they were not related. Still have to figure out what is going on with the switch, but for now it runs, so...

 

[Frosty]

good deal bro... glad ur back in action.

 

[THRUST]

practice makes perfect .