something smells funny

[davej]

My buggie burned up the diode regular pack yesterday. The buggie was running normal just a funny smell I didn't locate right away. Its an American Landmaster. Yardsport YS200. Ive been running it with the lights lately. It is like a baby sidexside with a dump box so I was doing yard work yesterday. Any WAGS on why it would burn out? One odd thing. I took the box off the back to work on it and the gas fumes were very strong. This buggie has never given an odor of gas. I checked the auto shutoff. It was working. Is it possible the auto choke either failed and caused the problem or failed because of the problem and I flooded back in to the air cleaner? I still have the original air cleaner on it. I will pull it tonight.Maybe pull the carb also. Im going to have to figure out how to test the auto choke before I hook the new regulator up.

[metalstudman1]

The enrichment valve (auto choke as you call it), it's not a choke- it fully extends it's plunger without 12volt power to terminate fuel to the bowl and retracts when power is applied to allow fuel into the bowl. To test if it's functioning -simply remove it from the carb and power it with 12volts (if 1 wire only ground the body of the valve- if 2 wires then 1 is positive the other is ground, the plunger will retract when it get's power and will extend when removed from the power source. It's spring loaded for extension and a magnetic field pulls the plunger in. It's only function is to stop fuel from entering the carb after being turned off.I doubt it's failure would cause another electrical issue unless it got pinched or fused to another wire coming across the engine.
The diode burning out leads me to believe that it has a direct short from the stator to the regulator/rectifier, burnt up stator (one of the windings has gotten so hot a wire has burnt in two), lost a good ground causing the stator,voltage regulator to overload from arcing, or a connector not plugged in all the way getting foreign debris across the terminals causing a short.
The smell of fuel could be coming from the overflow tube in the carb- stuck float,stuck main valve causing the fuel to just overfill the bowl when key is on.
Sounds like you already have an idea of where & what to look at-hope this helps

[Snaker]

I had one of those, a early one, 2010. I assume yours is newer, your referring to American Landmaster instead of the previous American Sport Works.

They did a electric system upgrade in 2014? (its mentioned in the manuals, go to ALM website) so I can only go by my version.

ASW was installing the RR's wrong early on. They had a single phase stator/RR setup, using the 5 wire RR with the mysterious black wire. Instead of connecting that wire to a switched power, they connected to the auto choke.

The other problem was they jammed all kinds of components into that small electric box. Those RR are significantly high heat generators and require venting. Not good.

My RR crapped out and did affect the autochoke, not shutting it off and causing overrich.

I replaced the RR to fix that problem but at the same time I converted to a manual choke. I'm in MN cold and found that the auto choke was ok down to about 40f, flaky below 40f and no good below 30f. The manual choke worked down to about 10f. I didn't run any colder because the shifter didn't like it.

[davej]

I got the new regulator and put it on. I found a couple wires going to my taillight had pulled out of the socket maybe shorted??? My so called gas leak was caused by a little gas can under the seat. When I threw a tarp in there it pressed down on the tank. A real bonehead move. Back to the regulator. Its charging 13.5 maybe a little higher. Takes a min to get that high. After ideling for 5 min the regulator housing was 109 degrees. Not sure what it should be. My battery is 5yrs old. Only has 12.2 volts on it before I start. Maybe a new battery is in order. Its a 2011 machine I believe and is a Yardsport YS200. It has changed to Landmaster so that is the site I go to.

[metalstudman1]

The values on the stator's charging voltage are good but usually a little higher at more rpm's(around 14+v)
A good battery at rest is around 12.50-12.90, your's is right at the point where it'll need replacement soon.
The temperature of the regulator doesn't sound too hot- voltage regulators/rectifiers are normally mounted in a place where they will get air movement to aid in cooling them down.
Glad you found the source of the fuel smell!

[davej]

Everything back together. I put a new lawn & garden battery in 260 cold cranking I believe. I had relocated the battery to under the seat. More room and out of the elements. I took the dogs for their normal couple mile run yesterday and measured the temp of the regulator. Still running only about 110 so good. Ill run a test with the lights on to see if there is a change. I am going with a new LED tail/brake light since the other is trash. Not sure if I will replace headlights with LED. Im just going to not run the headlights during the day so I should be ok.

[Snaker]

Glad you got it fixed.
I did the same thing, exchanged the scooter battery with a riding lawnmower battery, about 4x bigger and cheaper. The system has been handling it just fine for some 8 years. There was a big controversy on a long gone forum dedicated for ASW. Some claimed the system couldn't handle it, some even said the system required a trickle charger as routine. I didn't need a charger.

I went through the LSM manuals. The electrical upgrade was for 2011 models so you probably have the HO (high output?) version.
From what I can tell it was a change from a 7+1 pole, single phase, full wave (mine)to a three phase system. You can confirm by looking at the wires coming off the stator lighting coil. A white + yellow + green would be the old single phase and three yellows would be the three phase HO

[davej]

Its the old style white yellow green. Thanks for all the helpful info. I'm sill not sure if running the lights caused the overheat and burnout or if when the wires pulled out of the stop/tail light caused the problem. Maybe it just burned out because it can.The engine never missed a beat.Since I rarely drive at night Ill just leave the lights off. Im not sure how much amperage the little regulator can handle. Its running great now. Thinking about upgrading the clutch. Maybe start with a uni-filter. Might just leave it stock since its running so good now and does everything I need it to.

[Snaker]

If the tail lite shorted out I think it would have blown the fuse, shouldn't have bothered the RR. I think the RR's are just cheap. When mine went I replaced it with a ASW and its been fine. But as I mentioned they had the auto choke hooked to the black wire? I have done quite a bit with the electrical. I was collecting up old/obsolete cordless tools from flea markets and garage sales and would rig them up with a cord and a jumpstart pack. I ran those tools off the YS200 with no problems, drills , sprayer, chainsaw, skil saw.

For info on the powerplant there are scooter forums that get deep into mods.