jeepwm69 7,420 Posted November 2 Another "I have a friend who wants you to look at a Honda" thread. This one belongs to a woman who is caring for my friend's elderly father. It's a 2013 Foreman ES, exceptionally clean, 900 miles on it, appears to have always been garaged, and hasn't been in the mud much if at all. I did @Melatv's trick with a jumper wire from battery + to the red/black coil wire, and still no fire. I told her I'd come back and get it next week to take home to work on it. Since the 2012-2013 Foreman is pretty much an optioned 420, 420 troubleshooting instructions should work for this machine too. Going to download the FSM now, start reading. Figured I'd document the process here, as well as get input from the group, so it will hopefully help someone out in the future with the same issue. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted November 7 Welp, I've made tentative plans to pick this one up Friday to see if I can figure it out. I could sure use any input yall might have on this thing. I've gotten away from the EFI machines because they have so much electrical stuff on them, but this thing is super clean and I'm hoping it won't be a PITA to find out why it doesn't have spark. First thing I gotta do is get the battery charged up. It would slowly turn over when I stopped to troubleshoot last week, but I hooked cables to it and it still wouldn't start, so obviously has some issue other than the battery. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadetree 5,803 Posted November 7 36 minutes ago, jeepwm69 said: Welp, I've made tentative plans to pick this one up Friday to see if I can figure it out. I could sure use any input yall might have on this thing. I've gotten away from the EFI machines because they have so much electrical stuff on them, but this thing is super clean and I'm hoping it won't be a PITA to find out why it doesn't have spark. First thing I gotta do is get the battery charged up. It would slowly turn over when I stopped to troubleshoot last week, but I hooked cables to it and it still wouldn't start, so obviously has some issue other than the battery. i would start with inspecting all of the wire harness for any chewed damage from mice !. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted November 7 1 minute ago, shadetree said: i would start with inspecting all of the wire harness for any chewed damage from mice !. Yep, it's in a barn shop so that's logical. Has a good strong green neutral light and N showing on the dash. I was hoping melatv's "jumper wire from battery + to coil" trick would work but it didn't. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadetree 5,803 Posted November 7 2 minutes ago, jeepwm69 said: Yep, it's in a barn shop so that's logical. Has a good strong green neutral light and N showing on the dash. I was hoping melatv's "jumper wire from battery + to coil" trick would work but it didn't. yeah..inspect for mice damage, and spray some wd-40 into the kill switch. if you have a neutral light, then i would do a good check at reg/rec, as well as the stator harness area for mice damage. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted November 7 23 minutes ago, shadetree said: yeah..inspect for mice damage, and spray some wd-40 into the kill switch. if you have a neutral light, then i would do a good check at reg/rec, as well as the stator harness area for mice damage. The woman's brother put a caltric regulator on it, didn't fix it, so he put the stock one back on. Part interchange shows my Rubicon regulator is the same as this one, so I'll swap mine on and see if it does anything. It's a clean wheeler, but has aftermarket baskets on the racks etc, so gotta get all that crap off and out of the way to see what I'm doing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted November 11 On 11/7/2023 at 1:09 PM, shadetree said: i would start with inspecting all of the wire harness for any chewed damage from mice !. That was it. Several wires had bite marks. Two were chomped in two. Spliced/soldered/heat shrinked and it fired right up. Charged her a 12 pack of beer lol. Took me longer to get the rear basket off to get to the wiring than it did to find and fix the problem. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted Tuesday at 04:18 PM And, no so fast. Woman called me back, said it again has no spark. This morning I stopped by briefly, tried @Melatv's trick or running a wire from battery + to red/black wire on the coil. This resulted in the coil hissing and smoking, and of course, a blown fuse after a second or two while I was trying to get the wire off☠️ When they were troubleshooting the no spark issue initially, the woman said she replaced the coil, and I will presume they used a china/ebay/amazon replacement since they also put a Caltric voltage regulator on. Plan is to try to find the original coil and put it back on, and if she doesn't still have it, to order one from PSN. Would a bad coil (possibly an internal short) react this way to Mel's wire trick, or do I have other wiring issues to track down? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Melatv 776 Posted Thursday at 12:38 AM Hi Jeep -- the only thing I can think of is the ing. coil the woman replaced -- is that one of the wires on that coil is attached to the metal part of that coil or like you said bad coil. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeepwm69 7,420 Posted Friday at 04:29 PM I'm going to stop and check it in the next couple of days. She said she thinks the coil is in her shop, but I haven't had time to look for it yet. She's out of town at the moment Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
