HELP with wiring new motor!

[wheeler]

I finally got my new 23 hp Briggs and Stratton Motor. NOW, I'm confused (which is normal by the way). My new motor has got the Key on the side of the engine and I have electric start like all of us do on our rigs up front with the key start.
The new motor has got from the key on the side of the new engine, orange, red, black, white and yellow wires going to the starter and the square block area right above the starter, some of the wires go up and over the starter into oblivion. I had on my old motor a black wire coming from a ground and going to a connector (which had a black and white wire going to the front of the machine) and a red wire coming out of the little black box going to the other side of the connector. Thats it on the old motor. I know have all the other wires to deal with coming from the key switch on the new motor. I'm really nervous about cutting the red wire from the little box and the black wire on the ground on the new motor (from the key) to connect to the old connector. Does that make any sense or did I confuse the hell outta everybody. I need to figure out what to do. I also need a muffler that will fit the new motor. The old muffler is to short when it comes to bolting it up.

[msafi65]

Are you working on a max? I have all this written down in my ignition switch wiring stuff. Send me an email or text 907-388-8582 and send a copy. If you had a Briggs the 23 horse uses a different muffler. Exhaust flanges are larger and a bit farther apart.

[wheeler]

Yes as a matter of fact. I took the 18 hp out because of engine problems and have a new 23 hp to put in. The new one comes with the key start on the engine and I need to bypass the key on the engine and go with what I used to have, which is confusing. I need to put the new engine in and I don't know if I need to disconnect all the wires from the key start on the new engine and find which wires to connect from the old connectors. Hope you can help. I'll PM you with my email. Thanks

[MaxRules]

It seems like there was somewhere you could buy a motor that was already set up for a 6x6. Oh well, maybe not.

[thebuggyman1]

If you pull the harness off the 18 and put it on the 23 you should be good to go.

In a nutshell, motor wiring is:
1) Engine kill, this wire goes to ground when the key is turned off to stop spark.
2) Alternator, 2 wires from under the flywheel (usually yellow) go to a voltage regulator (usually mounted on the blower housing) and a wire (red?) goes from regulator to battery+ (often the starter/solenoid main post). Often there is nothing to hook up here other than the large wire to the starter.
3) Starter, Main (large) wire.
4) Engine ground
5) Solenoid, When key is turned to start this wire gets battery+
6) Carb fuel shutoff, This is optional on many motors and needs battery+ when key is on.

[jpswift1]

Jim is right on. And if you have any other issues you could call Recreatives and they'll email you a wiring diagram. And don't forget to get the correct governor spring (I think it's a green one) from Recreatives. Amphibious Six-Wheel Drive All-Terrain Vehicles: MaxATVs - Call 1-800-255-2511 Then you'll be all set. It's nice to just get an inexpensive little spring and some quick help on setting up some simple wiring rather than paying over $500 more for an engine that is exactly the same that comes "all set up".

[Dan67]

I can help you out here.. I put the exact same engine in my Hustler rebuild. I reused the key switch that came on the side of the motor. Its on my dash now. I did a complete rewire based from the key switch. I think I still have the muffler for it in the shed, slightly used.

http://www.6x6world.com/forums/hustler-atvs/17403-dan67s-hustler-950-rebuild.html

[wheeler]

I have the motor ready to go. In fact hooked up some jumper cables and fired it right up. I was a little shocked when I went to buy synthetic 5w/30 motor oil. 10.00 for 1 and I brought 2. Anyways, Exciting to say the least. And I think you have a great point Dan. I might just put the new switch in the dash and just add wires to extend the length. That might be the easiest to do. The one thing that sucks is the MaxIV's have the wires underneath the plastic where you just can't get at them. I also ended up taking the front seat out to check something under the front dash just so I could get at the key switch and I thought I would never get out. I just pictured myself yelling help I'm stuck and I can't get out. What a job trying to do something under the dash! I now find it's a good time to clean the tub and check the chains sprockets and etc. out. I'm beginning to feel like a real 6x6 dude. Also, is that muffler off of a newer 23 hp briggs?
Thanks for your help.

[Dan67]

yup it is a factory 23hp vanguard twin briggs muffler with exhaust to oil filter side of engine, it sat too low in my tub to use. might work just fine in a max 4 with the engine sitting on top of the t-20. there are pictures of it in my build thread. pm me if you interested.

[wheeler]

Dan
Yes I'm interested. I will go out and look at your build thread. Ahhhh, how do I find your build thread?

[wheeler]

Never mind I found it. Fantastic work you've done.

[wheeler]

DONE!

Woohooo!!! The motor is in and running. We had major mods to do to get everything right. We worked for two days straight and got it all back together. Thanks to my neighbor and my Son. I'm gonna bring it up to the muffler shop and have them try to get me fixed up with a proper muffler. Can't wait to get it back in the mud!!!!

[thebuggyman1]

We had major mods to do to get everything right.

Can you elaborate? If you replaced a Briggs 18 v-twin with a Briggs 23 v-twin, any mods should have been very minor. Self contained motors often have the choke, throttle, and key switch mounted on them and need to be removed for remote hook ups. I would hardly call those mods "major" Did you run into other issues?

We have to consider that other people in the future may read this if they are considering the same type engine swap......I do not want them to get any wrong impressions about the difficulty.

[wheeler]

[I]"We have to consider that other people in the future may read this if they are considering the same type engine swap......I do not want them to get any wrong impressions about the difficulty"

So, your saying it's easy and that there are no problems. I believe that we shouldn't be telling everybody that it's not difficult ?

It's not as easy as just removing the key switch from the engine and running wires. Wires run under the plastic and cant just be pulled to find where one or two wires go. I had a black and white wire that it took us a lot of research to find out what they did. I finally did by using a tester and some good old fashioned research and peoples help on this site including your help on many occasions. Some of this stuff may be easy for some people but not everybody. On the newer engine the solenoid is connected to the top of the starter compared to the solenoid on my frame. My machine had the solenoid connected to the engine frame plate. Most of my wiring ran from the solenoid on the engine plate to the power, extras or acc. in the machine. There were issues when we connected the wiring from the machines harness to the solenoid on the new engine. The new engine has a fuel shut off solenoid up under the carb where the old engine did not and there is no wiring from the old harness to this one and if your not an electrical guy you have to figure out how to get power to these things so they can run. There were problems such as the ground wire connected to the frame at the bottom right of the machine wasn't making good contact. HOLY COW, trying to find a bad ground you usually look on the most obvious spots, we never thought about the ground down under and on the frame, until we leaned on the engine frame and found that it got power - ahhh long story about that - And you will have no power without a good ground. We worked for a long time to try to find out where and why. A fuse blew underneath the dash and we did not have any diagrams to find where in the hell those fuses were. I ended up pulling the front seat out so I could lay down inside, and find the fuses, bolted up under the dash on the sidewall where you just couldn't get at them and still had to be a contortionist, and they aren't your typical fuse holder, the only way I knew they were fuses is by the writing on the outside of the fuse holder. Also, the throttle on the new engine did not have the right connections for a soft wire throttle. I had to remove the wire nut tightener on the old engine and drill a hole in the thottle connecter plate (Arrghh - drilling on a new engine) to put a soft wire-nut connector on and make it work, my thottle cables were tied all together with other wires within a protected tubing with a hole bunch of other wires in it going to lights, winch, heated throttle cable wiring and other things.
Anybody that is new to this stuff should, not go into it thinking that everything is going to be easy. I think guys like you Jim that have been doing this for many years tend to forget that we newbies that don't have any background or experience working with electricity or a lot of mechanical stuff find this a real challenge albeit fun, if your into challenges. (And I have reiterated that in many other posts, aka Sorry I'm a rookie to this stuff). I loved doing this but would not recommend just anybody jump into it and that it is going to be easy. I agree Major was a bit big, but minor modifications for some, might not be "minor" to others, and I'm not going to apologize for saying Major.
I want to thank everybody for the diagrams and the help you gave me, MARK FROM ALASKA, as I said before your a real Gem to the 6x6 world thanks for the Diagrams, it made a world of difference. Without help from a site like this we would have to do a lot of guessing and talking with people that have no idea about 6 wheelers. I have learned a lot about tearing into my machine and doing the things that will make it run good. There is a lot of maintenance to do on these machines and you need to learn that, and that's just what I did. I'm pretty proud of what I did and am glad to have the MaxIV beast back on track. Anybody that wants to get into this must understand you need to learn to do maintenance and have a little bit of understanding about engines, electrical and wiring and how the T20 transmission works in case your back in the middle of nowhere and have to fix it yourself with no help around. Ah, that never happens right!

[thebuggyman1]

I'm sorry if I offended you. You are absolutely right, all of the problems you encountered were ones I expected .....and knowing those things needed modification, and how to modify them, makes it seem very easy to me. Not knowing you were going to have to tackle the obstacles or having the experience to know exactly what must be done get around them, could make them "major". I'm very happy you took the time to outline what you encountered, hopefully it will help anyone else looking at D.I.Y. or not to D.I.Y.

I added the quote from my previous post to get it next to yours outlining your troubles. I would also like to add: The solenoid on the carb is a fuel shutoff. It helps prevent the engine from "running on" and backfiring when the key is shut off. The motor would run fine if it were removed, that's why they are optional. Just expect the loud bang when you turn it off.

If you pull the harness off the 18 and put it on the 23 you should be good to go.

In a nutshell, motor wiring is:
1) Engine kill, this wire goes to ground when the key is turned off to stop spark.
2) Alternator, 2 wires from under the flywheel (usually yellow) go to a voltage regulator (usually mounted on the blower housing) and a wire (red?) goes from regulator to battery+ (often the starter/solenoid main post). Often there is nothing to hook up here other than the large wire to the starter.
3) Starter, Main (large) wire.
4) Engine ground
5) Solenoid, When key is turned to start this wire gets battery+
6) Carb fuel shutoff, This is optional on many motors and needs battery+ when key is on.