First: am aware of of the Polaris ECM recall.
So I accepted a 2004 Sportsman 400 that was rolled. I had a good frame from another sportsman that had a bad motor. I removed everything from the 2004 and relocated it to the new frame. Problem happened when I connected the battery. I had not realized that the positive lead for the hand warmers was touching the frame, as I had not connected them yet. This lead was a positive 12v going from/to the ignition switch and the ECM. I smell burning, remove the ground off the battery and notice the hand warmer lead being pressed onto a bolt by the wiring harness. Needless to say, this was a BAD short. I opened up my ECM …. she is fried. I taped up the positive lead for the hand warmers, TRIPLE checked all connections, opened up some wiring loom to ensure nothing was abnormal, checked polarity, voltage, grounds, cranking amps of the battery, and swapped ignition switch. I spent over an hour making sure there were no other problems. Everything looked great. No water, no corrosion, no burnt wires, you get the idea. I installed the other (and last) ECM i had and…. ECM #2 gives up the smoke within seconds… it’s as if I were installing the battery leads backwards… at this point i was furious and sleep deprived at 1:30 am. I removed the entire wiring harness, opened up all of the loom, and carefully inspected EVERY SINGLE WIRE. I found no problems at all. I am a master automotive and diesel technician, and this simple… toy, had me tossing and turning last night. At this point I am going to use the other wiring harness that I have, buy a new ECM, and go from there. I am going to assume that the harness was damaged somehow in the rollover (which wasn’t that bad) and that I could not detect the problem when I inspected it. My question to you experts is: is it possible that this short that occurred, could have damaged another component that caused the second ECM to burn up? like the CDI box or ignition coil? Do you have ANY ideas, suggestions, or thoughts for me before dropping in a $150 ECM and potentially firing that as well? Thank you.
So I accepted a 2004 Sportsman 400 that was rolled. I had a good frame from another sportsman that had a bad motor. I removed everything from the 2004 and relocated it to the new frame. Problem happened when I connected the battery. I had not realized that the positive lead for the hand warmers was touching the frame, as I had not connected them yet. This lead was a positive 12v going from/to the ignition switch and the ECM. I smell burning, remove the ground off the battery and notice the hand warmer lead being pressed onto a bolt by the wiring harness. Needless to say, this was a BAD short. I opened up my ECM …. she is fried. I taped up the positive lead for the hand warmers, TRIPLE checked all connections, opened up some wiring loom to ensure nothing was abnormal, checked polarity, voltage, grounds, cranking amps of the battery, and swapped ignition switch. I spent over an hour making sure there were no other problems. Everything looked great. No water, no corrosion, no burnt wires, you get the idea. I installed the other (and last) ECM i had and…. ECM #2 gives up the smoke within seconds… it’s as if I were installing the battery leads backwards… at this point i was furious and sleep deprived at 1:30 am. I removed the entire wiring harness, opened up all of the loom, and carefully inspected EVERY SINGLE WIRE. I found no problems at all. I am a master automotive and diesel technician, and this simple… toy, had me tossing and turning last night. At this point I am going to use the other wiring harness that I have, buy a new ECM, and go from there. I am going to assume that the harness was damaged somehow in the rollover (which wasn’t that bad) and that I could not detect the problem when I inspected it. My question to you experts is: is it possible that this short that occurred, could have damaged another component that caused the second ECM to burn up? like the CDI box or ignition coil? Do you have ANY ideas, suggestions, or thoughts for me before dropping in a $150 ECM and potentially firing that as well? Thank you.
