Diagnosing grip/thumb warmers?

Backwoods M Max

Backwoods M Max

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Joined
Mar 31, 2011
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New England
My sled started to intermittently flash a .75 second code 3 times with a break. It is now on full time, quite annoying and I'm trying to do research to repair. Discontinuity of the variable resistor (thumb warmer), what is that really? Is the resistor burned out, the thumb warmer open? Looking at the line diagram the signal for the warmer goes through the ecu between the resistor and warmer, but would it tell me that if the wire to the thumb warmer broke or the warmer was open also? The sled has 5700 miles on it, and I hardly use the warmers but I bet the previous owner used them a lot. The bars were rolled down on your lap for trail riding when I bought the sled. It's an 02 mountain max
 
Get an ohm meter and ohm out the thumb warmer. Can't remember the spec for it right now.
Also disconnect the variable resistor and see if it changes resistance as you turn the knob.
 
I was going to start there with a meter and see what i come up with. I'm wondering how common this problem comes up and if its straight forward to repair or if there is something tricky and hidden to find.
 
the only uncertain items are the load control relays. they require special test equipment to verify condition. from there its a straight forward troubleshoot with a quality electrical tester(digital preferred over sweep). several unsuspecting items can contribute like the brake switch or the key switch down to relays, cdi box and even the stator.

have fun on your ghost hunt! thats what i call them, electrical issues can be a pain.
 
stein700sx said:
Given the height of those bars i would venture a guess that it in the wiring in the bars.
Click to expand...

I'll be looking at everything when I ohm out everything this weekend. I extended all the wiring harnesses on the bar equipment side, not the sled chassis. I used 16 gauge wire and heat shrink glue connectors on everything. I did notice how fragile the grip warmer wires are so I will look there first. All harnesses were extended 6", which seemed to be long enough at the time.
 
fourbarrel said:
The grips are 1.53 - 1.87 ohms and the thumb is 37 - 45.2 ohms,both at room temp.
Click to expand...


The grips ohm'd out at 2.0 or so ohms each. They are getting replaced with rsi high power stick on heaters and bar wraps. The thumb warmer ohm'd out at 41 ohms. The resistors were weird. I think they are burned out in the upper range. All the way down they are open, then click by click each one will get up around 350 then jump to .4k ohms or so when turned up all the way. Does the power actually go through the resistor, or does it just send a signal to the cdi That sends out the power? If I remeber electrical class right, you would want to find no resistance on high so the most voltage is going to the heaters? That makes me think its just some kind of signal to the cdi which sends out the grip heater voltage.
 
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