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Bike slow to crank? Weak crank? Barely turning over? Easy Fix!

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    Bike slow to crank? Weak crank? Barely turning over? Easy Fix!

    My bike sat for quite a while somewhere, before I picked it up to slowly work on repairing it.

    Had the typical symptoms (make sure you have a good battery, can just jump the starter with a car battery and some cables) where the bike would slowly crank, way too slow to start anything much less a gs750.

    It's actually a fairly straightforward fix.

    1.) Take apart the starter
    2.) Measure the brushes (things that are spring loaded), the service manual says the should be replaced when 6mm or under but ymmv.
    3.) Religiously clean everything with electrical contact cleaner (anything else may leave residue or degrade the insulation)
    4.) Take the commutator portion of the armature that you pull out, take a piece of sand paper (400 grit works) and uniformly sand it going in one direction rotating the armature to avoid any flat spots.
    5.) Reassemble, and your bike should crank like never before!

    At the time of writing electrical cleaner is about $5 at a Walmart, and the new brushes if you need them are about $15 (part 31131-31040 for my 1980 gs750)

    I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a well rebuilt oem part for $20 than an overpriced $185 new starter.

    #2
    A pic for reference, removed the post where the brushes sit but look at this!
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