Head lights, back light, and heated handle grips stopped working ZL600 - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

NE SoDak · 12-29-2012, 04:18 PM

Yesterday, I purchased a 2002 model ZL600 EFI SS. After riding about an hour the front light, back light, brake light, and heated handles stopped working. I checked all the wiring connections I could find and did not find anything loose or cut. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

COOKSTER · 12-29-2012, 05:07 PM

You might want to ohm the stator, specifically the lighting coil circuit.
Hopefully Blaine will chime in, he's the guru on stators.

**smallengineguy** · 12-29-2012, 05:17 PM

Or the voltage regulator quit.

**RJ Gleason** · 12-30-2012, 05:53 AM

Look at the bulbs, it they are all blown, then the regulator has failed.

NE SoDak · 12-30-2012, 02:01 PM

Thanks for the input. A friend of mine and I did some further looking today. I did confirm that the bulbs are good. We did not do an ohm reading on the stator as it looked like it was going to take an hour or so to take it off. We did do an ohm reading on the regulator. It came back with a reading of about 0.7. Should this be at zero?

NE SoDak · 12-30-2012, 07:12 PM

The guy working with me called this a responder, I am not sure if this is the same as a regulator.

sae1722 · 12-31-2012, 06:39 AM

Look at Blaine's video on stator checking. Very helpful and informative.

polymoog · 01-12-2013, 02:13 PM

My b/f had something similar once, lights and handlebar warmers quit. (ZL600 from 1999). Turned out he had wires touching metal parts in 3 different places, against the exhaust (because some of the plastic clips that hold the wiring in place against the hood were missing so the cables hung loose and the plastic sleeving had melted), behind the engine (bad wiring repair/mod), and also under the seat, where the wiring goes to the lights at the back (bad wiring repair/mod). So you might have something like that with yours, esp if you just got the sled, and you don't know what the previous owner has been doing with it ...

NE SoDak · 01-13-2013, 04:55 AM

Thanks for the feedback everyone. After checking all the wiring a few times and replacing the voltage regulator rectifier, I am now going to have a serious look at the stator. I did place an ohm meter on it and it did not give the results it should have.

**smallengineguy** · 01-13-2013, 06:26 AM

You can also test the voltage coming right out of the motor. It should be 30-40VAC before it goes into the regulator. If V is low, bad stator.

87Pantha · 01-13-2013, 08:19 AM

lots of good tips here. when I turned on my headlights, the engine would bog, I found that the current was jumping into the body, lil tape and it was fixed.