Starter woes

[h2olawyer]

Well, I was supposed to go for a nice ride Sunday aftrernoon.  Went out, pulled the V into the driveway & hit the starter to warm her up.  Click . . . click . . . click - no whirrrrrrr.  The starter has been acting up a bit lately & I was hoping not to need any wrenching on it until winter.  Bummer.  Oh well, since I couldn't go for the ride, at least the HDTV upgrade got installed.

Took the starter off & disassembled it this afternoon.  The wire between the brush plate & the positive cable bolt was disconnected.  The brushes are nearly non-existent & there's black powder everywhere inside.  Got it all cleaned up and then took the starter off parts bike.  Took it apart & cleaned it out.  Reassembled the original starter from Silver V, using the brush plate from the parts bike starter.  Must have done something wrong.  I get whirring from the starter, but no starter clutch engagement.  Also seems to use too much power to get going.

Yes, the planetary gears are in correctly - I spun it both by hand & using a battery before installation.  With the battery, it spun fantastic.  I'll drain some oil again tomorrow, remove the starter again & see what's happening.  If all else fails, I have one more parts starter that works & I'll install that one until I get a new brush plate.

Just needed to vent a bit.

Avalanche hockey in HD is incredible!

H₂O

[Tanno]

You're losing bet photo should be a little TOO revealing in HD also.  :o

[don_vanecek]

I also wanted to go for a nice-possibly last 07 ride on Sunday.  Well I did get to go but dang the V didn't want to start. I had started it just a few days earlier. Crank, crank, sputter, then run on back cylinder, finally running on both. Washed it, went out an hour later and for a moment it wanted to do the same darn thing!  I was going down to Omaha for a meeting of the VJMC I joined this year and before I met a guy named Mike who rides a late 70's Yamaha 750 triple, I went to gas up. You know I have gone two years without doing this, I managed not to do it on the Colorado trip, but what do I do, I overfill the tank! Well I stopped before it overfilled-but then the heat bubbled it out, darn!

So meet Mike, get ten miles down the road and notice something just isn't correct with my foot peg and it fills like my rear brake is on. Stop in a town and find I was real close to loosing the nut on the long bolt that hold your pegs on! With this loose it also effects your brake and even your shifting. Thank good-ness my 750 triple friend had a wrench, tightned the nut, happy to say no more trouble (retighned later).

We first went to a small warehouse where this one club member has a collection of maybe 50-60 bikes-most are really just junk, but interesting to see. This club has rebuilt a 71? CL350 honda that is also there, the varies members have it looking like new-but I don't think they have the engine and electrics all sorted out yet-they had blown a fuse just before we got there and had given up on it for the day.  In the warehouse the guy had a Yamaha 180 Bonanza, I had one of those for a year or so, I sure didn't remember them as being so small!

Well then off to our meeting then to a members garage where my 750 friend looked at a 750 triple Maxium another member had just gotten. I felt kind of sad that although this was a complete bike-the club member had pretty much bought it just to part out (now it had sat since 1990 in a barn). My friend was perhaps interested in the exhust. The member had paid $400.00 for that 750 that had sat for 16+ years-too much I think. But he expects to more then double his money parting it out. Humm, not sure what I think of that-but I guess if it means someone somewhere else will then have a working bike perhaps its not so bad, It certainly would have taken a fair amount of time to fix the Maxium up, it was in similiar shape to some of the Visions that members post about that have sat for many years-you could crank the engine over (it still has a kick starter)-it wasn't froze-perhaps not a bad project but not with a starting bid of $400!

Well Robert I've taken up enough of your post-I better get back to work!     

[h2olawyer]

WOO - HOO!

Went out to see what I did wrong with yesterday's starter project.  Drained the oil (again) and removed the starter.  A quick look showed one issue - the starter body had spun & the witness marks were no longer in alignment.  Hmmmmm - guess I didn't get it screwed together tight enough.  Anyway, I took it apart again to make sure everything inside was still clean & shiny.  Reassembled it & really got medieval with the screws.  Reinstalled the starter, refilled the oil, reconnected the battery.  Then I turned the key on & hit the switch.  Instant VROOM!  Hasn't started this quickly for a long time.  Issue resolved!

If you are having starter issues, examine your brushes and clean out your starter.  Over time, starter performance degrades & it happens a tiny bit with every start.  When you get it all back together, you will be amazed at the improved starting.  I've now experienced this phenomenon twice.  Once when I did the starter nose seal & again this time.

I will be ordering two of the starter rebuild kits from eBay, but I don't have to do it until I park the bike for the winter.  The brushes in the plate I used this time are still within specs, but they are getting a little short.  The ones that were in the bike are almost entirely gone - well beyond the minimums.  (If the minimums weren't good enough, they wouldn't be the minimums!)  ;D

H₂O