Why won’t my bike start

[Hango]

78 1000e, new battery, rotor, r/r, carbs rebuilt
does not start with the electric starter
Battery is strong, explodes to life when push started. Runs great.
help, ideas
jim

[Redman]

78 1000e, new battery, rotor, r/r, carbs rebuilt
does not start with the electric starter
Battery is strong, explodes to life when push started. Runs great.
help, ideas
jim

Classic symptom of weak-marginal battery.
When running the starter motor the current draw is lowering the battery voltage (beacuse battery is mareginal) to the point that the ignition can not work properly.
If you are cranking for long long periods of time, over 2 or 3 seconds, try shorter times, like one second, it may start when let off the starter button.
One way to know would be to do the "quick test" (described in a link Posplayer sig line) and maybe also measure batery voltage when cranking over the engine with the starter.

Other possibilty is starter is weak and is not really turning over as fast as should be.

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[Steve]

Numbers, please.

1. Battery voltage with the key OFF
2. Battery voltage with the key ON, kill switch ON, engine not running
3. Battery voltage while cranking the engine.
4. Battery voltage when you stop cranking the engine.

I was going to ask about valve adjustment, but that would also affect push starting.
I'm going to ask anyway, ... have you checked valve clearances?

.

[gsrick]

Jim you need to clarify some info. When you say it does not start with the electric starter, is it turning the engine over and not catching or is it not doing anything? If it's turning the engine then see the previous posts, if it's not doing anything, you'll have to check your starting system. It could be the button on the control, the starter solenoid, or the starter.

[Redman]

Now i see that you said "new battery" , okay, but maybe it is not well charged.

[Steve]

Gsrick has a very good point there. Is ANYTHING happening when you push the button? Do you hear a "click" when the solenoid activates? Does the engine crank over? If it does crank, is it quickly or slowly?

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that none of the above is happening. Have you tried pulling in the clutch lever?
The Feds were doing what they could to protect us from ourselves and mandated a system that would prevent the bike from moving while the engine was being started. Suzuki installed a simple switch in the clutch lever, which required pulling on the lever to be able to use the electric starter. Other manufacturers went a bit more elaborate, allowing starting if the transmission was in Neutral.

Try pulling the clutch lever, then pushing the starter button.

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[Big T]

Steve,

clutch safety switch is an 80's thing
78 doesn't have one

[Hango]

The starter is fine, and the bike turns over. Last year I replaced with ricks electric the r/r and the rotor
last week I bought a new battery ( big crank).
Friday I rode 200 miles upstate ny and stoped are restarted many times.
Yesterday morning it was hard to start full choke, no throttle. At the first stop 50 miles the bike would not start after a 15 minute break. Lucky I am riding with a group of other bikes, all a lot newer than mine. 4 more times I needed to be push started. 1 time after a longish lunch stop the bike did start on its own. After that at the last stop I needed to be pushed again. When it was push started it started right up.
of course I am 175 miles from home and will need 1 gas stop. I was holding the start button for a while trying to get it to start, today I will just give it a 1 second shot as suggested above to see if that works. The first post above week battery sounds right. WHY daaaaa bad ground, burnt connection, 40year old wires. I don’t think it is the ricks electric parts.
I will check all of the voltages when I get home.

[Brendan W]

My gut says you have marginal supply voltage to the coils and when the starter is drawing the voltage falls to the point it won't fire.
Main suspects are the ign switch, kill switch, fusebox in general but the main and ign fuses in particular, the supply plugs to the coils, the supply to the contact breakers and maybe to a lesser extent the plugs on the ign and right handlebar switch tails.
These most likely all need cleaning anyway so there is no reason not to do it and you might get a pleasant surprise when it's done.

[Steve]

Steve,

clutch safety switch is an 80's thing
78 doesn't have one

Thanks, Big T.

I did not know when they started. I have not had a GS older than my current one, an '80.

The few older ones I have worked on might have had the switch bypassed, like mine, I did not bother to check.

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[Hango]

I am home. The bike started 3 times from the starter. It took a few cranks. I did not hold the start switch only pressing it for a few seconds.
As soon as I got home I went to my other 78 Gs 1000 and started it. It definitely cranks faster.
Tomorrow I will check voltages and connections.
now I’m going swimming.
thanks for the advice
jim

[Steve]

Tomorrow I will check voltages and connections.

Refer back to post #3 to see the voltages we would like to see reports on.

.

[jsandidge]

My gut says you have marginal supply voltage to the coils and when the starter is drawing the voltage falls to the point it won't fire.
Main suspects are the ign switch, kill switch, fusebox in general but the main and ign fuses in particular, the supply plugs to the coils, the supply to the contact breakers and maybe to a lesser extent the plugs on the ign and right handlebar switch tails.
These most likely all need cleaning anyway so there is no reason not to do it and you might get a pleasant surprise when it's done.

This would be my suspicion too.

[scratch]

My gut says you have marginal supply voltage to the coils and when the starter is drawing the voltage falls to the point it won't fire.
Main suspects are the ign switch, kill switch, fusebox in general but the main and ign fuses in particular, the supply plugs to the coils, the supply to the contact breakers and maybe to a lesser extent the plugs on the ign and right handlebar switch tails.
These most likely all need cleaning anyway so there is no reason not to do it and you might get a pleasant surprise when it's done.

So true. Before cleaning I was loosing 1.0- 0.7v going to coils at dirty off/run switch, after cleaning size of spark was much greater, Big differnce, short time, cheap...

Also sugguest taking apart the starter and giving it a good cleaning, If any oily mist has found it's way in there, then dirt starts acumilating and they can get nasty.
Saw a fried resurect a "dead" starter just by cleaning, no rebuild kit... it occured to me at that moment that any 40 year old starter could benefit from some love'n.
Easy to dissasemble clean and put back together, and again, you might be pleasantly surprised at the difference.

Even if these things are not the catalyst for your no-start, totally worth doing.

[OldVet66]

Clutch switch started in '79. If you used a Ricks R/R it is a Shunt type and the electrics may have gone down the same rabbit hole because of the condition of the harness (switches, connectors, plugs, etc.). If those conditions remained a Shunt R/R is very iffy. I suspect you have charging problems if it is not a marginal starter.