Hey guys!

New to the forum, it seems to be difficult to find info on these atv's. I just had a few general questions. I picked up a 2008 Zstar 250 and it was running great and just died on me the other day. Going through it, I believe it to be an electrical issue.

Starting with the battery, it is crap. I will be going to pick one up today as well as a new spark plug.

The wiring on this thing is crap. Do I buy another harness or just rewire this one with a thicker wire? Wires running out of the stator look fried. If I run the electric start for more than 5 seconds the wires start to smoke (Yikes).

If anyone could let me know what else to look for and how I should handle this so i can keep it running without turning my ATV into a bonfire, that'd be great.

Also are there any places in Canada that sell parts for these? Lost the damn key for it already and I'd like to get a new ignition switch instead of having it bypassed.

 

Id rewire it yourself if you can do that.. no telling what you could buy as far as a new harness goes.. On one of my Jetmoto's(the 200 I think) it had a smoking wire problem with extended starter use also.. It came down to about 4 ground wires all being grounded to the frame connected to 1 thin wire.. as a bonus the paint was left on the frame where the ground clip was bolted to. I made 2 other ground points for the various wires.

Most of the electrical problem's my Jetmotos came down to a loose wire and or the slip connectors had lost their grip.. they arent made like the ones on Honda's and or Yamaha's etc...

 

Thanks a lot for your response sir!

I took your advise and started rewiring. You were correct, the ground wire goes quite a few places and it is very small... I have only done that one wire so far. The ground at the CDI was fried. Explains why there was no spark.

Wishing this thing had a kick or pull start

But I now see my Neutral or reverse indicator only lights up sometimes (I did catch it flickering once). Seems there is a wiring issue there as well. Would that effect the atv with starting? I still haven't bought a battery for it but I boosted it to see if I had spark and it wouldn't turn over, only get a clicking .

Any ideas what I should be looking at next? Sorry I am good with mechanical things but I still don't have a complete knowledge of electrical systems, they have always been a challenge for me to figure out.

Wishing this thing had a kick or pull start

 

Got it running! Thanks! I left the battery cable loose haha.

 

Your welcome.. glad to hear you got it going..