Dead spot in Starter

[Anonymous]

I have been riding a 1980 GS1100 for 2 years now that I got running after it had sat for 4 years. Stripped down the carbs, found a new tank to replace the rusted out one. I have now moved to Phoenix from Calgary Canada and I have a dead spot in the starter. It starts fine if I push start it. There is just no start when you hit the button. Any hints of where to start tracing.

Regards
Clark Spencer

[Anonymous]

Does the starter solenoid click when you hit the starter button?

[Billy Ricks]

The starter button is a good place to start looking. The contacts get a little corrroded and you get nothing. It's and easy job to pull the starter and check the brushes and polish up the commutator, the part the brushes make contact with. The switch on the clutch lever may not be making contact right either.

[Anonymous]

I know that is has an interupt somewhere. I started it and shut it down and then tried to start it again and the starter kicked in and stopped. This makes me think that it might be a dead spot in cummutator. No clicking and I have checked the safety switch on the clutch. I almost want to solder a cross on that little clutch switch. I always engaged the cluth while starting anyway, and it would eliminate that potential weak spot.

[mcconnell]

Spencer . . . the first 'mod' I did on my 83 GS1100G, in 1983, was to go inside the headlight shell and unplug the clutch switch, then connect the wires together on the harness side. Never had a problem except when friends rode her and left her in gear when they stopped. I always left her in neutral so I could go through the starting procedure the next morning one-handed.

[Anonymous]

If you have a dead spot in the starter you'll need to remove it and check the brushes as well as the part they ride on (commutator?).
If you have access to a Growler you can use that, otherwise use a multimeter set to ohms or beeper and check to see if there are any spots where 4 contacts are hooked up, there should only be 2 hooked up at a time. Once you find the pairs that are hooked together you'll need to look for for the reason. It may be internal but if you're lucky it will be a piece of your brushes embedded between two contacts. Just dig it out and sand down the commutator.

Steve

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the input gentleman, I will let you know what I find out.

Regards
Clark

[Don Lobacz]

The dead spot is usually in the starter relay, not the motor. The relay is an electromagnet that rams a copper disc onto copper poles. That is where the heavy arcing occurs. Most relays can be disassembled and cleaned up. The starter button is a problem area too, as Billy Ricks pointed out.

[argonsagas]

Now that you have had the obvious, how about one that is not obvious?

I had a similar problem last spring. Slightly different, because if I rolled the bike ahead, or rocked it, a few times, it would start. I posted the problem and found the concensus was that it was a starter clutch problem. Pulled the stator cover and did everyting I could to pull that *** thing off. Gave up and reassembled it.

At almost the same time I had a problem with fuses blowing. Could not find the problem. I bought a brand new harness a year ago, but the problem appeared to be in there....pulled it apart and a tiny spring fell on the driveway. Don't know exactly where it came from, but there was nothing else wrong. The harness was all unwrapped and, seeing there were an incredible number of splices inside the harness, I thought, why not solder all these things?

So I did that. Soldered everything, covered every electrical joint with liquid electrical tape then wrapped the joint and the entire harness with regular tape. Reconnected the harness and found my fuses stayed OK and SURPRISE! The starter problem was gone.

Clean ALL contacts!

[Anonymous]

Why not try jumping the green/yellow wire on the solenoid to the red (POS) post on solenoid. If it turns the starter over, the problem is before that (somewhere between the ignition switch and the solenoid). If it doesn't turn the engine over but, makes a clicking noise when you touch the wire to the post, it's either the solenoid or the starter. If you jump across the two posts on the solenoid with a screw driver and the starter doesn't turn it's either the starter or bad connection in the cables. If the starter was turning when it stopped I would not suspect the starter.

[Anonymous]

Problem found. I trace all the ignition circuitry last night. Took 2 hours. Started by disabling the clutch saftey by looping in the head unit. Checked the ignition switch, it was OK, checked the started button to the solenoid it was OK. Checked the start button engaged to the solenoid and it was good. Battery is good. Jumped the post on the solenoid an the starter bumps so I knew the starter was not the problem.

So I ponder. Everything good up to the solenoid, and the solenoid bumps the started so it has to be in the solenoid. Sure enough, I opened it up and there was the broken wire. Everybody is happy now.

Got to tell, the manual skematic is priceless to have on these old bike. The circuit is actually a lot simpler that I first thought it was and as a bonus I discovered the bike is actually a 81 model. The skematic shows that 80 models had a kick stand warning light and the 81's replaced this with a low brake fluid light. I have the brake fluid light.

Thanks for the help guys, once again this site provide such a tremedous source of information.

Regards Clark.