Why does instrument cluster on 2004 polaris sportsman 500 not work?

Answer 1

Cluster, high beam and AWD not working?

Have you lost your speedo/cluster power, lost your AWD and your High beam, well here is the probable fix.

I have written this twice and fixed a few Polaris with the exact problems including my 2004 Sportsman 500HO and the Departments 2006 Sportsman 700 and a few of my friends Polaris ATV's. So I am posting for general consumption.

The late 2003 to ?? is wired the same to the cluster (speedometer. First take apart the pod, three screws (think later models have 5).

Understand that the AWD is controlled through the Cluster, if the Cluster is not working, AWD does not work unless you do a mod.

First check the brown ground wire on the cluster, it is the ground with a ohmmeter, shove a small pin or needle through the wire and use that for your test point, you will find no continuity and same with brown double wire going to the Highbeam (leave the single wire alone on the highbeam connector, that is power).

The wire on the Cluster your looking for is a brown wire, not the black (black is power), it is at one of the ends of the rows of wires and of course was the very last wire I tested. I think it's numbered as #20

When you lose the ground highbeam you lose the high beam, Cluster and AWD, period.

Took me a week to find it, the problem is the ground from the Highbeam double brown wire and I tore apart most of the wiring.

Just had another problem the other day with the exact same wire, so now I jumped the wire to ground direct using a real flexable, good guage wire.

Oddly enough the cluster ground wire goes down in the loom in to the front trunk area, and then back up to the high beam light ground and then to ground after a few more connections including the socket along the way to the ignition coil ground.

For a real simple test, put a splice wire between the brown wire at the high beam connector (just shove a bared end of a splice wire into the back of the double wired connector of the high beam making contact) and to ground and you will be amazed, everything will work.

To fix just tie in a section of wire from the headlight connector to a good solid ground, and it will be fixed.

There is no fuse for this despite how many posts I see on this.

It really is the most stupid wiring I ever saw.

My new mod is to ground the cluster and the light seperately, working well now. If you look at a diagram, there is a boat load of stuff tied together and then ground with the ignition coil, ground is ground, and many of this depends on a little 16 ga wire coming off the Headlight.

This seems to be a common problem, I already fixed a few of my friends bikes, this fix was good all the way through 2007 sportsmans, that is the latest year I have worked on.

I hope this helps you and many others,