500Ho Elec Power short

[Copperzuk]

Hi there, I'm new to site but have been watching for a while. I can't seam to find any answers to this problem.

04.5 Sportsman 500ho. Was starting to get hard to start last fall, pulled carb off to find it very clean. Problem did not change but got worse to the point it will not start now. It will pop out the carb and exhst and has strong spark, just seams that the timming is off.
The day it would not start, the power to everything started staying on and and the only way to shut the gauges, lights ect off is to unhook the battery.
I first looked at the ing switch and kill switch, same problem when both are unhooked. I have unhooked the control box with no change. The only thing that will kill power is pulling the power distrubtion tab out of the plug on the lt ft under cowl. I have pulled all the wire looms off looking for a shorted wire and found nothing.
Is it poss the stator could be shorted which would explaine why all this happened the way it did or am I overlooking something. I know about the recall on the control box, with that unpluged I still have power..

What I mean by have power is the gauge pod is fully lit with LCD, Tail lamp and brake lamp, starter button is always live. It acts like the ing switch is on all the time.

Please help if you have any imput before this thing turns into fire wood..

[bakada]

Im going to step out on a limb here because I really dont know for sure about the 500 engine even though I recently bought one. Still learning. In other small engines I have delt with progressivly harder starting was an indication the valves needed adjusting.(I think they tighten up over time) That being said i dont know if the 500 valves can or need adjusting. Also I thought I read somwhere that a low battery can cause havic with the guages and speedo pod causing them to act irattic. If the battery got low while trying to start it maybe that has somthing to do with you guage problems.

[Bruce!]

Welcome to the board!