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Starter motor, or the gears?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Naturchine
  • Start date Start date
N

Naturchine

Guest
Hi
I recently bought a GS850, but haven't gotten it to start as of yet. It has been standing (without being started) for 8 years. The engine is not seized (successfully turned 19mm crank bolt).
When I push the bike and it's in gear, it has compression.

When I bridge the solenoid, the starter gear tries to rotate CCW and spin the starter gears: and
when I unbridge the solenoid, the starter motor gear and starter gears kick back and spin in the opposite direction (opened the left casing & saw it happening).

An auto-electrician recently put new brushes into my starter motor & thinned a layer of the armature. Afterwards he tested the starter motor via taking a piece of wood & putting it on the gear as it spun, and the gear ate through the wood. He also put the piece of wood on the gear before it started spinning, to see if it would start under load (but piece of wood slipped off the gear few times). It SEEMS that it did start to spin with load (if there even was any load, seeing that he struggled a bit). I don't know how accurate his type of testing is.
The armature grooves of the starter motor is good.

When I did some voltage tests, this is the figures that I got:

I fully charged the battery and when I put VOM probes on + & - : 12.99 V
When I bridged solenoid, and + & - probes on battery, it read: 10.6 V
When I bridged solenoid, + probe on starter motor bolt (where cable from solenoid connects) & - probe on battery negative, read: 0 V
And when I unbridged the solenoid (when it gives 0 V), the gears would spin backward & suddenly a reading is given: 5.3 V
After all the testing etc, + & - probes on battery, read: 12.6 V

If any of the starter gears etc, are stuck & stops the starter motor from spinning: would it give a 0 V reading?

Is there something wrong with the starter motor?

Any other ideas?

Thank you for your time!
Pierre Joubert
 
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When you say bridged the solenoid are you bypassing it (connecting battery to starter) or merely activating it? If your are activating the starter relay (solenoid) I'd question the relay and try bypassing it. If you are bypassing the relay, I'd check the wires and connections going from the battery to the starter on both the positive and negative side.
 
Hard to follow, but:

Are you sure it is spinning the correct way?
Check your engine ground strap?

With negative on your engine, you should not have voltage on the starter terminal or the dead terminal of the solenoid unless the starter button is pressed.
 
Thank you for the input & the help.

Problem solved: engine / pistons are still stuck / seized.

'Fingers' on the timing advance mechanism that 19mm nut fits into, are broken off (back of 19mm nut has slit where fingers fit into).
That is why I could still turn 19mm nut (right-side cover).

Bike's backwheel still turns when bike is in gear (hardest in 1st gear & easiest in 5th) & somehow wheel isn't locked-up / frozen: even though engine is seized.

Still trying to figure out why gearbox isn't driving the crank?
 
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It is worth noting when investigating an issue, it is time efficient to make some assumptions toward reducing the uncertainty of where the issue might lie. The problem occurs when we overlook there assumption and leave ourselves in a logical quandary.

In this case a direct test of piston movement would have shown the motor to not be moving. Turning the 19mm bolt is a choice of expediency and assumed sufficiency. The assume created the path toward starter investigation and logical dilema of in ability to determine an fault with he starter.
 
Hummm??? Back wheel turns when in gear. Obviously the connection from clutch to crank is not there. Could be the clutch or even stripped gears. Makes sense that it would turn easier in 5th gear then 1st because of mechanical advantage.

Engine seized and clutch not engaged. Possible that the engine locked up while being ridden. Sudden lockup may have broke something in the clutch housing or trany. I'd pull the clutch cover and see what's going on there. May also be the cause of the locked up engine.

Either way, it looks like you've got your work cut out for you.
 
JTGS850GL said:
Hummm??? Back wheel turns when in gear. Obviously the connection from clutch to crank is not there. Could be the clutch or even stripped gears. Makes sense that it would turn easier in 5th gear then 1st because of mechanical advantage.

Engine seized and clutch not engaged. Possible that the engine locked up while being ridden. Sudden lockup may have broke something in the clutch housing or trany. I'd pull the clutch cover and see what's going on there. May also be the cause of the locked up engine.

Either way, it looks like you've got your work cut out for you.
Click to expand...

I think there is a very bad case of PO :-&
 
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