I just recently picked up an '05 350 for the wife that seems pretty well taken care of for the most part. Looks pretty clean, couple small cracks in the plastic, but overall pretty nice. Have ridden it around the yard and neighborhood (ditches and a trail by the train tracks) a handful of times and have had no issues worth mentioning.
Yesterday the wife and I took our first trip to a legit trail/ATV playground so she could get used to it a little more. We were there for probably an hour or so in the morning and it was going pretty good. She's very timid and was going pretty slow for the most part, but she didn't grow up around doing stupid things on wheels so I can't blame her.
At some point it's kinda smoking a little, smelled like maybe a hint of burning oil coming from somewhere. I thought maybe it's running a little warm because it's air cooled and she's going so slow most of the time. So I say "let me take it for a spin quick and see what happens".
Made it like 40' away and it just totally died. Shut off right after I shifted into 3rd. Pulled the clutch in to restart and the start button is absolutely dead. No click, no noise of any sort.
Take the seat off. Negative terminal on the battery is loose. Get a screwdriver from the truck, tighten it up. Still nothing.
There's some electrical tape wrapped around some wires by the CDI box so that's an immediate red flag, obviously. That and there are actually a couple wires showing and a non protected crimp connector. Sweet. I messed with it for a few minutes and started getting hot and frustrated, so I quit.
Fast forward to me unloading stuff at home. I go to roll it off the trailer and hit the button for the hell of it. Cranks instantly. Caught me off guard so I did it again. Fired up. I keep it running while I coast off the trailer, pop the seat off and start wiggling all the wires around in hopes that it shows itself again. Nothing.
So I think "hey I'll throw the seat back on quick and see if I can ride it around the yard". Shuts off. No crank.
TL,DR: intermittent no crank issue. Has power to all lights, including neutral and reverse. Cranks when jumping the solenoid but will not fire. When it cranks with the start button, it also has spark.
Where to start?
I messaged Morph for a service manual in order to get a good wiring diagram. He mentioned possibly a bad CDI unit. My head is spinning from reading thread after thread about no spark this and no spark that, but almost every one I find they have cranking. I don't.
I've found mention of the on/off kill switch possibly being faulty. Is there a way to bypass that momentarily for troubleshooting purposes?
Any help and/or guidance would be much appreciated!
-Cody
