98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

[FoxMcCloud]

Hey everyone!

So I'm obviously very new to posting here, but I am not new to scouring these forums for information I have needed in the past. HOWEVER, now I have encountered an issue that I am truly stumped over.

I have a 98 Yamaha Waverunner gp760 that I've had for about a year now. Couple months ago, I get back to the dock after riding it all day, go to start it to get her on the trailer, aaaannnddd it wouldn't start. I will save a lot of time here by simply stating I've gone through all the basic troubleshooting procedures as I am more mechanically savy than your average individual. That being said, pwc's are not something that I have a plethora of knowledge on.

Things I've done thus far;
Had starter rebuilt
Replaced the solenoid with a new one
Rewired both positive and negative cables to battery

What the issue is;
The ski simply will not even attempt to turn over. Once I hit the code on the dash to unlock the ski, and I hit the green ignition button, there is a mysterious buzz coming from the electrical box. Now, I heard this "buzz" after I had the starter rebuilt. I had it rebuilt because when the ski wouldn't start at the dock for me I figured there was a flat spot in the gearing of the starter. But the gentleman who rebuilt it for me told me he found nothing wrong with it. When I installed the newly rebuilt starter, is also when I replaced the pos and neg cables. THIS is when I began noticing that upon attempting to push the ignition button, there is a buzzing sound. I immediately figured the solenoid was bad, so I replaced it. Charged the battery up, filled her up with new gas, went and hit start.... and wouldn't you know it... it still buzzes. Now, the dash seems to be dim to me. And when I put the ski into "Lock" mode, the red light flashes twice and goes to flash a third time but all of a sudden cuts off like all power has all of a sudden been disconnected.

I am very perplexed by this issue. Anyone have any thoughts at all on what this could be?

Thanks in advance!

 

[smclear]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

Could be the C.D.I. unit, or perhaps the Starter relay assy. Do you have a service manual? If not, get one. If you do, then look in it as there will be information (voltage and resistance across the various electrical components.) that you can use to test these pieces.

The folks at Riva motorsports can likely get you the service manual if you can't find it elsewhere. Here is a link that shows where the parts I mentioned are located

Rivamotorsports.com's 1998 Yamaha XL 760 W | ELECTRICAL 1 Parts List

 

[sixfigures]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

First thing you need to do is use some jumper cables from the battery directly to the starter, hook the ground to the starter body and hit the terminal with the plus cable, if that turns over the starter, you need to start using a volt meter and start checking for voltage to the relay and pay close attention to ground wires as they are usually the cause of electrical issues, be sure all grounds have continuity. For example, the solenoid could be good but it isn't getting a good ground so do a jumper from the ground to the battery and see if it works, also check voltage readings at the various connections. I would also follow the sound of the growling to the part that is making it and check the power and grounds there.

 

[FoxMcCloud]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

Ok so! I went and bought a brand new duralast battery, installed it, and same thing happened. So I then did your suggested jumper cable trick sixfigures, and low and behold she tried to turn over! So I then brought out my digital multimeter and began testing. 12.7 at the battery. About 5.64 at the solenoid. But then I noticed something else, my dashboard was no longer illuminating the phrase "code". In fact... There was no longer anything on the dash no matter what I did. Just blank. Not even the little flashing red light in the center. So i traced the bottom of the display guages wires all the way to where the female end from the guages connects to the male connecter from the ski. I unplugged it and tested the male ski side, and theres 12.7 volts there. Plugged the connection back in and still nothing at the gauges. If i look closely enough with shade over the gauges, i can tell they are "glitching" very faintly when I try to push the left side button that activates the gauges to come on. Could the problem be my display gauge has been going bad? And now its completely dead? Could this be the culprit all along? Thanks for your help guys!

 

[FoxMcCloud]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

Update! Ok so somehow i went back out and the gauges are working now. But everytime I enter my code to start, the gauges die the seccond I hit the start button. Start stop switch possibly bad? I have a guy offering to sell me the entire electrical system from a running gp760;
Complete ebox
Stator
Flywheel
Start/stop switch.
$250 for it all
Think thats a good deal guys?

 

[FoxMcCloud]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

Sooo... i decided not to buy those parts from the guy. I had an electrical savy friend come over and test things out for me. Turns out everything checked out... Except for the two green ground wires that go from the e-box to the front of the motor. The wires are showing theres no ground. What are those two green ground wires going into in the front of the motor? Is this the flywheel? I'm trying to find a manual but... Not so easy. At any rate I need to find out what that is that the wires are leading into and go from there...

 

[smclear]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

At one point in time, I owned a '97 and a '98 GP760. That was a long time ago. If you get no responses, call the guys at Rivamotorsports. They will be able to help you. They started out as Yamaha's factory sponsored race team. (now they deal with all manufacturers)

Contact Us

phone # at the bottom of the page.

 

[FoxMcCloud]

Re: 98 Yamaha gp760 wont turn over, just buzzes?

Thank you smclear! Much appreciated!