I have a 95 XP and when you press the start button nothing happens, the gauges do nothing. When pressing the safety switch and the start button nothing happens either. It will crank over when jumping the starter solenoid. I tested the connection into the solenoid and got nothing, so the solenoid is not being triggered. I tested the start button and safety button inside the electrical box and they both had continuity when pressed so those seem ok. All fuses tested good. The only other thing I could think of is a bad mpem? Any other ideas?
95 XP no crank
- Thread starter o0o0o0o0o
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Well that was short lived because it's dead again after I moved the ebox. Gauges dont even light up or anything, just completely dead. Everything seems to have a good ground but somewhere there's a wiring issue, so I'm not sure what to do besides test the continuity of every single wire which sounds like a pain.
It's not that bad. I've had a few of those myself. I think I have the problem again on my GTX we'll see. 
So start with the hot wires and the ground wires. If you have a diagram use that. I find it better to have one. Don't waste time on the insignificant wires. OH.... Check the wires coming out of the engine. If those are not connected the ski won't do anything. Wiggle that and see what happens. Check where they go into the box and make their connections.
So start with the hot wires and the ground wires. If you have a diagram use that. I find it better to have one. Don't waste time on the insignificant wires. OH.... Check the wires coming out of the engine. If those are not connected the ski won't do anything. Wiggle that and see what happens. Check where they go into the box and make their connections.So I checked the wires coming out of the engine and everything seemed ok. Good ground and the yellow wires weren't shorted to ground. I checked all the other grounds and everything seemed ok. Then I checked the hot wires and everything had voltage. I then tried to check for shorts to ground and got nothing. Then I unplugged all the vts connectors to eliminate that whole circuit and again nothing. So at least that narrows down the possible bad wires.. Maybe I should unplug stuff from the mpem one by one and see where that gets me? Problem is I don't know what wires are needed for the gauges to turn on or for it to send the start signal to the solenoid.
I"m not sure about that model ski but there are tests you can do on the MPEM wiring to determine if it is good. The procedure tell you which wires to connect the positive and negative lead and read Ohms. I had to tear into the one on my 1996 SPI. It was quite an adventure. It failed because the rectifier failed. I had to dig in there and find the diode that was bad and replace it. I made a test MPEM out of one so I could plug it in test the ski. If it blew the diode I could replace it easily
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Tearing all that apart does not look very fun.
So I took the mpem out and connected a battery up to it. Then I shorted the start button to ground and was getting power out of the purple wire which seems like it turns on the gauges. Then I shorted the start and kill switches to ground and I was getting power out of the trigger to the start solenoid, which was not happening before. However there was about a 1v drop on these, but I have no idea if that's ok or not.
It seems possible that all the moving around of it got it working again and it's just an intermittent issue with the mpem, as I did get it working before I moved the ebox. So I guess the next step is to stick it back in and connect wires one at a time to see when/if it stops working. And if it doesn't stop working then I think that would be more than enough to confirm a bad mpem. I don't think it would be that diode though as the fuse doesn't pop.
It also passed all the resistance checks that I saw in the manual.
So I took the mpem out and connected a battery up to it. Then I shorted the start button to ground and was getting power out of the purple wire which seems like it turns on the gauges. Then I shorted the start and kill switches to ground and I was getting power out of the trigger to the start solenoid, which was not happening before. However there was about a 1v drop on these, but I have no idea if that's ok or not.
It seems possible that all the moving around of it got it working again and it's just an intermittent issue with the mpem, as I did get it working before I moved the ebox. So I guess the next step is to stick it back in and connect wires one at a time to see when/if it stops working. And if it doesn't stop working then I think that would be more than enough to confirm a bad mpem. I don't think it would be that diode though as the fuse doesn't pop.
It also passed all the resistance checks that I saw in the manual.
My pictures is what happens when the 5 amp fuse keeps blowing and the diode breaks down.
Prettly cool ideas to run your checks. I think you need one of those handy dandy tools to take the connectors apart so you can clean them That was a problem on my GTX. Intermittent power to start up. Matt Braley suggested taking those connectors apart and cleaning them. I found dirt in one of the first ones and after I cleaned it.... the ski became reliable on start up. Yay !!
I had the same problem as you.. I"d move the ebox and the ski would start for the weekend. Then... let it sit and it wouldn't start again. Gremlins. LOL
Prettly cool ideas to run your checks. I think you need one of those handy dandy tools to take the connectors apart so you can clean them That was a problem on my GTX. Intermittent power to start up. Matt Braley suggested taking those connectors apart and cleaning them. I found dirt in one of the first ones and after I cleaned it.... the ski became reliable on start up. Yay !!
I had the same problem as you.. I"d move the ebox and the ski would start for the weekend. Then... let it sit and it wouldn't start again. Gremlins. LOL
Did you run the MPEM diagnostic checks with the ohm meter. one sure way to find out if the MPEM is bad is to check continuity between the red ring terminal and black ring terminal. If that is shorted the mpem is done. Of course they don't always fail that way and you are not blowing fuses correct??
It's always something isn't it, but good luck to you as well!
I put the mpem back in today and covered all the connections with dielectric grease (none of them looked dirty or anything), and it was working fine. So I put the ebox back in there and everything was working perfectly fine. I moved all the wires around pretty good. I tried to get it running but the battery was getting low so I disconnected the positive terminal to charge it.
And then about an hour later I came back and reconnected the battery and everything was dead again! So I guess it's possible that moving the positive cable a little to connect it did something even though I moved it a quite bit before. Or my other theory is that the mpem was working fine inside where it was warm, but after sitting in a 30 degree garage for awhile it stopped working for some reason. Well at least I'm getting closer maybe.
I put the mpem back in today and covered all the connections with dielectric grease (none of them looked dirty or anything), and it was working fine. So I put the ebox back in there and everything was working perfectly fine. I moved all the wires around pretty good. I tried to get it running but the battery was getting low so I disconnected the positive terminal to charge it.
And then about an hour later I came back and reconnected the battery and everything was dead again! So I guess it's possible that moving the positive cable a little to connect it did something even though I moved it a quite bit before. Or my other theory is that the mpem was working fine inside where it was warm, but after sitting in a 30 degree garage for awhile it stopped working for some reason. Well at least I'm getting closer maybe.
I'm gonna ask a real strange question. Are you taking the start switch cap off of the ski or leaving it on? I had issues with leaving mine on when having trouble. Mine would turn over but not start due to a "no fire" issue. I'd remove and replace the cap and it would start right up. Send me a part number for your MPEM I"ll see what I have here. Do you have a wiring diagram ??
On the GTI RFI I'm working on the replacement Control Module seems to be an issue. It has the PTO fuel injector wide open and it doesn't shut off. Dude !!! That thing sure cleaned my bilge. Ha ha Dang !! Unless it is an issue with my other box I'm gonna have to get off some $$
On the GTI RFI I'm working on the replacement Control Module seems to be an issue. It has the PTO fuel injector wide open and it doesn't shut off. Dude !!! That thing sure cleaned my bilge. Ha ha Dang !! Unless it is an issue with my other box I'm gonna have to get off some $$
Have you closely inspected the battery cables? If moving the positive is intermittently fixing this issue it's sounds like you may have a bad cable.
The battery cables tend to rot on the inside. The result being that the cable looks completely normal on the outside but is not on the inside.
This was actually one of the issues on my 95 xp. I had run through so many diagnostics trying to figure out a similar issue and replacing those battery cables ending up being the answer.
The battery cables tend to rot on the inside. The result being that the cable looks completely normal on the outside but is not on the inside.
This was actually one of the issues on my 95 xp. I had run through so many diagnostics trying to figure out a similar issue and replacing those battery cables ending up being the answer.
I've been alternating between using my finger to press the button and putting the cap on and off so that's not the problem. MPEM is 278-000-423.I'm gonna ask a real strange question. Are you taking the start switch cap off of the ski or leaving it on? I had issues with leaving mine on when having trouble. Mine would turn over but not start due to a "no fire" issue. I'd remove and replace the cap and it would start right up. Send me a part number for your MPEM I"ll see what I have here. Do you have a wiring diagram ??
On the GTI RFI I'm working on the replacement Control Module seems to be an issue. It has the PTO fuel injector wide open and it doesn't shut off. Dude !!! That thing sure cleaned my bilge. Ha ha Dang !! Unless it is an issue with my other box I'm gonna have to get off some $$
A wide open injector sure sounds like a control module issue.
That was my other thought as well. It has to either be the battery cable or the mpem. I did look at the battery post area of the cable and peeled back the rubber a bit and it looked pretty corrosion free. But I've been a bit sick and dealing with some cars so I haven't had a chance to check it out.
I had to try swapping the modules around to see if I could get it to work but in the end I had to order the whole set up off Ebay. Ski is running now.
Glad you got your problem fixed!I had to try swapping the modules around to see if I could get it to work but in the end I had to order the whole set up off Ebay. Ski is running now.
The positive cable checked out, so leaving no other possible cause I replaced the MPEM. It now beeps when I press the safety button, which never happened before, and I actually got the thing started (for the first time ever because I bought it broken). Also finished rebuilding the starter in my GTS and got that working too! Now I only have to wait like 4 months until summer
. Thanks for all your help!!- Status
