Now mine won't start

[newc4]

These system failures seem to cascade across a number of bikes at the same time. I, too, am having starter problems. My electric start now longer works. For quite a while my bike, a 78E, has been hard to start and in jumping my bike, I’m afraid I compromised my starter circuit.

I jumped my bike by hooking the cables to the battery leads, which really didn’t help too much and my battery eventually exhausted itself. So, checking out the battery is next on my list.

To begin trouble shooting I checked out the clicking solenoid. I replaced it with a NOS one and I still get the clicking suggesting a weak battery. I crossed the solenoid leads, hit the start button and engaged the starter. Now, I could turn over the bike with the start button. Figuring I fixed the problem, I rode it around for about ½ hour with the intent of charging up the battery. At a stop sign all electrics failed and the bike stopped running. Turned the ignition off then on and got the instrument lights. Hitting the starter I got dim inst lights and the clicking again. Got it going with a rolling start.

Now when I try to cross the solenoid leads the entire electrical system goes dark. Turning the ignition off and on gets the inst lights back.

I figure the start button works, the solenoid works and the starter motor works. I do have the spade fuse fix and I checked those. The turn signals and brake lights work fine when I first turn on the ignition. What other components do I need to look at and how to check them?

The reason it was such a hard starter was that I let my spark plugs crud up. Only one out of four had a gap. Cleaned those up and re-gapped them and the bike starts with a touch – when everything is working.

Darrell

[bikerphil]

Check and clean all the grounds. One at the middle drive unit to the frame, neg battery cable to the frame, and at the voltage regulator. As for the charging system, the alt. connector behind the fuse panel is a trouble spot.

[XJOK2PLAY]

Darryl,

Do you have a volt meter you can check the battery voltage with?

Needs to be around 12.5 v. to have enough to start, and to keep the TCI going to fire the coils.

When running @ around 2000 rpm, charging system should bring it up to between 13-14.5 volts. If not, may have a bad alt., bad reg/rec, bad ground connections at the reg/rec... etc.

Sometimes, a sulfided battery, dry cell, broken cell, or battery cell short will cause your problem... might pull it out, take it to a parts store, and have them load test it.

Of course as always, after that passes, check your connections... especially around the fuseblock, and back in behind on those connectors.
Good luck, hope you find the cause.

[randy]

Rather than rely on the starter body-to-engine ground, I ran a separate ground lead from the battery to one of the starter mounting bolts. Helped a lot. Realize that the original design routes the ground through the middle drive into the engine case then into the starter motor. Three points of failure.

[cywelchjr]

Rather than rely on the starter body-to-engine ground, I ran a separate ground lead from the battery to one of the starter mounting bolts. Helped a lot. Realize that the original design routes the ground through the middle drive into the engine case then into the starter motor. Three points of failure.

While totally true, I found that having redone all those connections (new starter with new engine and double checking all the middle drive bolts) that the connection for mine seems to be real good. I may add an additional down the road, but on mine with clean connections it's working like I never expected.