Dead Starter Motor?

[sam000lee]

Bike has been starting up very easily all season. I went to start it up a few days ago and can hear the solenoid click but the engine doesn't turn over. After some fidgeting, including putting the bike into gear and rolling it around with the clutch in, I got it to start up. That only worked once and now the bike won't start at all.

I have new plugs, good spark, battery is charged. I checked and cleaned the connections between the battery, the solenoid and the starter. It 'feels' as if the battery were low and didn't have enough juice to turn the starter.

Does this sound like a dead starter? I've heard of people rebuilding these, what does this entail?

Thanks in advance.

[tom203]

"It 'feels' as if the battery were low and didn't have enough juice to turn the starter."

maybe it is, trying using.Jumper cables from NON running car and see if starter motor spins faster with this boost. Batteries can fool you and appear charged. How old is yours?

[sam000lee]

Battery is 2 years old, so not new and is a veteran of some charging issues so could be the culprit. I'll give that a try, thanks.

[posplayr]

If you note the steady state battery voltage change between bike off and key on you will get a good indication of battery health.

See first two steps of Quick test.

Load assumed is standard with lights and ignition but bike not running (about 10 amps).

[sam000lee]

The battery voltage with ignition on but no lights was around 12.5V which should be good. I tried jump starting it from the car battery but to no avail. What are the steps for diagnosing the starter motor? If that is indeed the culprit is it better to rebuild or just buy new? I saw that Rick's makes one for $150 which seems pricey.

I wish this bike had a kick start....

[Steve]

Get a rebuild kit at Stockers Starters. About $30.

.

[tom203]

This starter motor p/n 31100-44110 pretty common on ebay -used on gs300 and gs650 shafties also. Removing one from crankcase is painful, so brace yourself! Might be just worn out brushes, but can't tell till you open it up. I believe Ricks actually sells rebuilt units.

[sam000lee]

Cool I ordered the rebuild kit. Looks like the cam chain adjuster and airbox might be in the way ... any thing else to watch out for?

[Steve]

To get the cam chain adjuster out of the way, you might have to remove the carbs.

It's been a while since I have worked on a 450, I don't really remember.

.

[sam000lee]

I didn't have to take the carbs off to remove the cam chain adjuster, so getting the thing out was a lot less painful than I anticipated. Just waiting for my rebuild kit now.

[sam000lee]

So I rebuilt my starter motor which is now working fine, but think I may have messed something up putting the cam chain adjuster. The bike won't start up with the choke, which is normally how I cold start it, but will start and idle if I am giving it extra throttle. However, the bike dies quickly if I let go at all, and the cylinders are getting hot very quickly.

I'm worried there is extra friction somewhere and that I'm going to seize the engine if I force the bike to keep running by setting the idle screw higher to keep it running.

Could this be the result of improper tension on the cam chain?

I bump started the bike a couple days ago before I took the starter motor out and everything was running A-okay.

[tom203]

Did you reinstall and reset camchain tensioner correctly?? If not chain could have skipped on sprockets- bad news, so find out before any more engine running

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/storagecliff/images/engine_odds-n-ends.html#A06

[sam000lee]

Yup, I tightend the lock screw when I took it out. To put it back in I loosened the lockscrew, depressed the pushrod all the way, tightened the lockscrew, installed the assembly back into the cylinder, unscrewed the lockscrew (felt the pushrod go out little), tighened it, backed it out 1/2 turn and then tightened the locknut.

I was thinking this could perhaps be that the starter clutch isn't disengaging, and causing an extra load on the engine/pistons. Is it possible that part of the starter clutch could have come loose during removal/installation of the starter motor? I opened the left case up and everything looked in order but there's a bunch of stuff behind the stator rotor that is part of the starter clutch I didn't look at.

How do I go about diagnosing whether it skipped the sprocket?

[tom203]

Sounds like you got tensioner back in correctly so it can work. When it was out, no one cranked engine engine over by mistake, ? So it should be same as it was.
Starter clutch is likely not stuck on -if it was ,it would destroy itself. Since it was running OK before, you must have disturbed something pulling the tensioner out or fiddling with starter motor- maybe carb linkage, etc.. Replacing the starter motor won't effect the starter clutch drive since they are seperated by that intermediate gear.

[sam000lee]

Nope, the bike sat totally still and undisturbed. I havn't had a chance to look for about a week but was thinking that maybe the timing got upset when I took out and reinstalled the timing chain adjuster. I had noticed dripping coming out of the exhaust when I ran it. At the time I didn't think anything of it since sometimes that happens when I use the choke, but now I am thinking that maybe it could be unused gas due to the timing being a little off.

Any justification or debunking of this theory? The manual says that the timing is "pre-set" and so there is no way or need to adjust it.

Thanks for all the help so far!