Cold starting help

[Guest]

Beleive it or not in Houston its been pretty cold (comparatively) . I have been having a heck of a time starting and warming up my lil 450 when its around 30-40 degrees. My wife is VERY (8 months +) pregnant and I work around 1-2 hr commute away. I'd prefer to leave her the car.

Got any early morn freezin tips on starting my bike? I've checked the battery and it seems ok. I am guessing the oil gets pretty thick when its that cold. I have no garage, and it ain't comin in the house, tho it probably would make less of a mess than our pets. Any other ideas?

[focus frenzy]

Cold? in Houston? ROFLAO
OK now, synthetic oil will help with starting, it tends to flow better at low temperatures reducing the drag on the starter, I would not go below 10w40, and would make sure to get a brand that is compatable with wet clutches.(honda, valvoline motorcycle synthetic, mobile 1 motorcycle synthetic)
change your sparkplugs to a hotter heat range, this helps the engine warm up a little quicker.

if your battery is easy to get to, you can remove the battery and keep it inside, nice and warm, and put it on in the morning when it is time to go to work. lead acid batteries loose alot of their cranking capacity at low temps, a warm battery is a happy battery.
In my line of work, we see 85% of all battery failures at two times of the year, at the first good freeze, and when the temerature passes 100*f.

going up one size on the idle jets will help alot. thses bikes come jetted pretty lean, and the cold air just makes it worse.

[Anonymous]

If you can. An old trick is to cover the bike and keep a bulb lit under the cover

[Anonymous]

Maybe I missed it but you didn't say how it is difficult to start. Is it ignition or fuel or just hard cranking... I had found my 1100G was hard to start all of a sudden and descovered that the choke cable had stretch abit and I had to pull it all the way out to get it to kick over. Before all I had to do was pull the choke out 1/2 way.
GY

[bgmart450]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll see what I can pull off.

Gerry, the starter drags real bad like the battery is low when starting when its very cold, I can later start it when it warms up a bit no probs.

[Anonymous]

Assuming there isn't any mech/elec problem...keeping the battery warm inside or maybe plugging it into a trickle charger overnight is a pretty good idea. (Way to go Frenzy @@@@@) 8)

Are you goin full choke...you should.
Also, once it warms up check the curb idle speed (knob between carbs and airbox) you may want to raise the RPMs during the winter , say around 1150 to 1200.

Other suggestions sound about right ... 8O Except Slopoke's...What's with the bulb under the cover? Sounds like your building an incubator...never heard that one before. Guess you old timers are chuck full of all kinds of remedies...

[Anonymous]

Cold startin

I've been up here in Omaha and I found a few tricks that help alot...I don't know how good they are on the bike, but they work.

1. Make sure the bike is in neutral - (I don't know if that's common knowledge but I didn't know it)

2. Put your choke full on before you start cranking

3. When you start cranking, give it lots of gas so it gets sucked in- I thought I was flooding mine, but it turned out it wasn't getting enough gas.

4. I run my bike rich before I shut it off. That way the next morning there's already plenty of gas in the engine.

Doing these things has helped my bike start up almost immediately in the cold weather...again I don't know if they are a good idea mechanically...
1981 GS450L

[mcconnell]

These bikes don't have 'chokes' on the old sense, ie, they don't have a plate that chokes off most of the airflow into the carb. They have a special enrichening circuit in the carb that only work well if the throttle is fully closed. And they work best when the idle is set to factory specs and no higher.

Also, 'running the bike rich before shutting it off' puts raw gas into the cylinder making it easier to start the next day, but this same raw gas washes what little oil there is off the cylinder walls, causing increased wear when the engine is started. And, if that's not bad enough, if enough raw gas is left in the cylinders, it gets into the crankcase, diluting the oil.

The hard starting problem actually sound more like a starter or battery problem, like the starter brushes are worn out or the battery doesn't have adequate capacity or bad connections. How did you test the battery?

[bgmart450]

As you suggested I am fairly certain of a battery issue. I had the same problem again. It gave me problems when I bought and I bought a battery a few months ago. While its warm outside the battery could go a month before it gave me any woes. Now that its cold its just impressing upon me an issue that I have been avoiding.

I have only a 22$ tester that is very inaccurate for testing battery issues as the closest voltage setting is 50 volts. It'd get me close, but not enough to do a true diagnosis.

I think that I will get a trickle charger that has an auto shut off / kick on, depending on the battery's condition, and leave it on overnight. How much longer is it going to be cold here in TX, right?

Once funds improve in my house or nessicity calls I'll dig deeper.

Thanks for your ideas about this y'all!

[Philly_Chris]

I too paid about 20 bucks for a multimeter(Radio Shack), but mine has all kinds of features. Seems odd that 50V is the lowest range setting. Don't mean to open a whole 'nother can of worms. in fact, there is a thread regarding multimeters from a few weeks/months ago, i believe.

[mcconnell]

A multimeter (voltmeter) is not good for testing the capacity of wet cell batteries. I've had a few motorcycle and car batteries that showed about 12.5 volts, but couldn't carry the load of turning on the ignition switch; the voltage would go to 0. You need to put a calibrated load on the battery and check the voltage drop. They make testers that do this and I was lucky enough to have someone give me one many years ago. Ask around and see if you can borrow one. Or better yet, if the battery is much more than 2 years old, replace it.

[bgmart450]

I too paid about 20 bucks for a multimeter(Radio Shack), but mine has all kinds of features. Seems odd that 50V is the lowest range setting. Don't mean to open a whole 'nother can of worms. in fact, there is a thread regarding multimeters from a few weeks/months ago, i believe.

Actually it goes from 2.5v to 50v. Skips right over logical car/cycle/marine battery ranges.... I am not sure when or why I bought this one..... I'll look for that thread on testers tho. Thanks

[SqDancerLynn1]

I agree with mcconnell if the battery is more than 2 years old replace it. With a good quality replacement,

[KEITH KRAUSE]

A real cheap 'fix' that might help you live with it easier is to bump start or if you are on level ground,before actually starting,put bike in third gear,pull in clutch,'walk' it a few feet and let clutch out while walking it a few more feet. This will loosen things up a bit. I do this to my bike if I have'nt ridden it for several days.It just seems to help even though I don't have any starting problems.I just believe this habit makes it easier on all the parts. I do have a short downhill driveway that makes it really easy. Hope this helps...DAD! KK.

[redliner1973]

with those 30-40 temps in houston, it sounds alot like the weather here in Arkansas. we do get below freezing here in the AM's, but I run 20w-50 in mine and it starts ok for me. I make it a point to replace my battery every year, reguardless if it needs it or not. wal-mart sells a cheap and fair battery for the GS. Cheap insurance. i think you have either a dragging starter (bad brushes or bearings in it) or a prro wire ground or connection. i would look there first before anything. And throw away that worthless meter you have. i went to an auto parts house and installed a voltmeter to my GK, and on a cold moring even my 'fully charged' battery will read 11 volts when cold and the ignition is turned on (bike not started yet). but read good when everything is off. try a new battery first, reapir the wiring and go from there.