Quad starter spinning backwards.
 

I have an old Yamaha kids quad and the starter has never worked, forcing me to push start it for them whenever they manage to stall it. The starter spins but the engine does not turn over. I was told by the neighbor I bought it from that the starter did work at one point. So today I decided enough with the push starting, I would get that starter working. I took the starter off and couldn't see any reason it wouldn't work, eventually I spun the starter with it off of the bike and it is spinning the wrong direction, spinning the gear train in the freewheel direction rather than turning the engine over.

The starter can only be hooked up one way, I traced the wiring back and everything looks correct. Any suggestions at what else I could look at would be welcome. This is the second time I have seen a starter spin the wrong way, but the other time it was a new starter I had put on a pump jack popper, and it was defective. Never seen one switch directions, assuming my neighbor was telling the truth.

Took my trolling motor from my boat apart and fixed a leak and put it back together. Prop spun backwards all of a sudden. Phoned my cousin who knows everything there is to know about these things and he informed me there can be positive and negative brushes and if put in the wrong way will cause the motor to spin backwards. He was correct as I switched the brushes and it worked correctly then. Not sure if that is the case with your issue but it was my issue when motor turned backwards.

look how your battery is hooked up? the leads could be reversed.

Leads were done up properly. I jumpered the starter backwards and it spun properly. I reversed the leads, it was difficult to get them hooked up with the battery spun around, the colors are backwards and I can literally trace the wire from my positive post right to ground... but the starter works now! Not sure whether it would be advisable to run the quad like this or not, I guess I'm in the market for an old Moto 4 starter.

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why the ???

A simple electric motor will spin forwards or backwards depending on the way the positive and negative terminals are connected.

Is that the only thing the battery runs? Normally you would just reverse the leads on the starter itself if possible allowing everything else on the machine to function as normal instead of at the battery. Maybe that is how you did it?

Perfectly fine to leave it hooked up like this. I do it often on other similar style electric motors. Depends on how the motor was originally wound determines which direction it will go.

someone took the starter apart at some point in time and put the magnet back in wrong. Just did this to myself well working on a small quad. take the starter off and take apart try not to pull the shaft out from the output side as it can be a pain to get back together. take the middle section that holds the magnets and spin it around and put it back together. Bench test to see it should have switched directions spinning. Switch wires back and you are back to factory. Mine happened on a grizzly 125 which is the same as a breeze if that helps.

Spot on to fix your problem. If you don't want to do that then leave your battery leads hooked up the right way round and ONLY reverse the leads on your starter motor. This keeps everything else working properly and has starter spin correct direction.