Finally got my old Arctic Cat to start after 3 months of tinkering...

I got this 2004 Arctic Cat 400 that I picked up from a guy outside of Muskegon last fall. It ran okay for a bit then just died on me one afternoon. I swear I went through the carb like 4 times, cleaned every jet, replaced the fuel lines, even put a new battery in it. Nothing worked until I actually checked the pickup coil resistance last weekend... it was way out of spec. I got a used one off eBay for like 35 bucks and swapped it in Thursday night. Fired up on the second pull and idled smooth for the first time in months. Felt like a real win after all that frustration. Has anyone else had electrical gremlins that drove them crazy on these older machines?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona3306d ago

Man, electrical problems are the absolute worst on these older machines. I read a thread on a snowmobile forum last winter where a guy traced his no-spark issue for almost a year before he found a rubbed wire on the frame harness near the recoil housing. The stator and pickup coil setups on those Cats are finicky as hell too, way more than the polaris stuff from the same era. Once that resistance gets even a little off from heat cycles it basically kills the computer's signal and you get nothing. Nice work catching it, a lot of people would have just tossed money at a whole new CDI box and never fixed it.

emmam675d ago

I used to be one of those people who just threw parts at it. Figured it was faster than chasing wires through a harness for three hours. Last month my cousin's '97 ZR was dead, no spark. We tested the stator, pickup coil, CDI, all within spec on the multimeter. Almost ordered a new CDI box before I remembered that thread about the rubbed wire near the recoil. Sure enough, pulled the recoil housing back and found the wire insulation chewed through against the frame, bare copper showing. Taped it up and it fired first pull. That one experience changed my mind on electrical diag completely.