Starter? Relay? Ground?

[jayz]

If the starter relay clicks once, does that mean the relay is working?

Since it's getting power, can I assume the clutch disconnect and the starter button are also working?

1980 GS550E

[Steve]

Yes. (sort of)

Yes.


And, as Paul Harvey would say, "and now for the rest of the story."

If the relay clicks once, it tells you that everything in the safety-related circuits is working properly. What it is also telling you is that there is not enough current or voltage getting from the relay to the starter. Check your battery voltage with the bike turned OFF, should be over 12 volts. Keep the meter in place, turn the key ON, check the voltage again, it will drop a little. Engage the starter, check the voltage while the starter button is pressed. It should not drop below 10 volts. If it does, charge the battery and try again. If it still fails, replace the battery.

If the battery voltage remains above 10 volts, move your meter probe to the "dead" side of the relay and see if you are getting voltage there, too, when the starter button is pressed. It is possible that the coil is moving the relay, but the internal contacts are dirty, preventing current from going through the relay and reaching the starter.

If you do have to get a new battery, consider a sealed battery. The cost is only slightly more, the benefits are priceless. \\/


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[txironhead]

Continuation of the rest of the story.

All the aforementioned advice was sound. There is a quick way to check the main components. First off, put the bike in second and try to "push start" it with the key off. If the engine turns over, that's good, it means the engine is not hydrolocked or frozen. If it doesn't turn over, take the spark plugs out and retry. If gas spews out of the cylinders, you've got a bad petcock and your starter system's probably fine. If it doesn't and the engine still won't try to rotate, you may have more serious problems. Make sure to get a bit of a rolling start with the clutch pulled in before releasing.

If the engine turns over, take a jumper cable and connect the starter hot wire (under the starter cover, top terminal) directly to the positive side of the battery. Make sure the battery is fully charged. If the starter turns, you've got something wrong in the starting circuit. If it doesn't, you've either got a bad cell in the battery (easily tested at AutoZone) or a bad starter. If your starter's bad, you can either buy a rebuild kit if everything's in good shape or a rebuilt starter if it's toast at www.stockers.com.

[Steve]

Good continuation. \\/

Thanks for the addition. 8-[


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[jayz]

Thanks for the great advice! I'll try that tonight when I get home from work.

Just to be clear, if after testing the battery, I run a wire from the positive battery terminal to the thick black cable that runs from the relay to the starter, the starter should turn, correct? And if the starter doesn't turn, the problem is in the starter?

[Steve]

No need to run an extra wire there, just use an old screwdriver to short across the two terminals on the solenoid. (That's the proper name for the starter 'relay'.)

If you want to do some testing, feel free to connect your bike to a larger battery, like the one in your car, but DO NOT HAVE THE CAR ENGINE RUNNING. :shock: The voltage regulator on your bike will see the higher voltage and try to regulate it. Since the output of the car is quite a bit higher than the regulator is capable of handling, it seldom does it successfully.

As mentioned before, the first thing to do is to verify that you actually have a useable battery in the bike. So many things are dependant on that good battery, they just won't work right if it's not in good condition and decently charged.


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[jayz]

Ok, here's where I am now...
Battery was at 12.5. When I turn on the key, it dropped to around 12.0. When I hit the starter button it dropped to around 6 volts. This is a battery I took out of my other bike, it was working fine in the other bike.

I took the other battery off of the charger. (I had put it on the charger last night when I switched in the other battery.) It was at 13.3 volts. When I turned on the key, I watched it steadily drop to around 12.1. When I hit the starter button it dropped to about 6.7 volts.

I took the leads off of the relay and wired them to a battery cut-off switch I had lying around. I figured this would let me control when I hit the juice to the starter better, without a lot of sparks. When I turned the cut-off switch to "run", I could hear one click from the starter, but that's all.

Also, in each step of these procedures, whenever I hit the starter button, the battery terminals and both terminals on the relay would get VERY hot immediately. When I ran the juice through the cut-off switch, the cables got hot. I never ran juice more than one second at a time.

So what's the deal with this? It seems unlikely that both batteries would be bad with the same symptoms. I'd been using one of them in my other bike.

[bonanzadave]

Did you try the stuff Iron Head mentioned. If the engine is free and not locked up try push starting it. If its not locked up then....

Two words. Dead short. I cant believe your not blowing a fuse. Not sure where but something is shorted to ground.

+ to +, - to - ? Just asking.....

[jayz]

It starts easily with a push, so it's not locked up. So the problem is somewhere in the wiring, and not the starter?

[jayz]

Another thought...

If I run a wire straight from the positive terminal of the battery to the wire running to the starter and the battery terminals get hot, does that mean the short is in the starter? None of the other wiring on the bike would be involved. This could explain why no fuses blow, because the power to the starter runs straight from the battery to the starter relay to the starter to the ground without going through a fuse. Sound right?

[txironhead]

Starter's fried. If you take an electric motor, bind it to where it cannot spin, and then plug it in the wires get very hot very quickly. So either the starter's toasted or something is binding in the starter gears. Since you can push start it, that almost completely eliminates that possibility. Take the starter off of the bike and hook jumper cables up to it, positive to terminal, negative to case (where it bolted to the engine). Hook it up to your car's battery with the car off. Hook it up for only a second. If it spins, which I doubt, it's gummed up to the point only a high amp battery will turn it. If it doesn't, the jumper cables will probably get a bit warm. Either way, you need to take it apart and see if it's rebuildable. Or you can just buy a rebuilt or new one.

This exact scenario happened to a friend of mine, turned out that one of the brushes had cracked and jammed the armature. $25 for a rebuild kit, some emery paper and electrical parts cleaner and he was on the road in about an hour.

[jayz]

Thanks. It's good to know what the problem is. This site is great!