She Won't Start

Hi Guys,

Hope you can help on this one.

My trouble began during the week. I took my VFR for a short journey round the block and then she would not restart. Between the recovery guy and myself we isolated the fault to the starter motor area. He hit the the starter motor connector with the butt of his wrench alleviating some of the corrosion that had built up on the connector and the bike started and I managed to get home.

His advice to me was disconnect the starter motor connector and wire brush it, which I have done and now the bike won't start. The battery has plenty of juice and I have checked fuses and the starter relay all are in order. I suspect the fault lies within the starter motor and the brushes, but I'm not a confident on this. Has anyone had a similiar fault and how do you rectify it?

Ian

 

If the connector is all green and fuzzy the corrosion may not be limited to just the terminals you can see. Corrosion has a tendency to crawl up the wiring and trash the whole thing if left alone long enough. See if you can attach a regular automotive headlamp to the connector, if it lights up BRIGHT when you hit the crank button, your wiring should be fine. If it's dim, I would start lookig for high resistance most likely caused by corrosion. This is basically getting you to do a resistance test on the wiring, yes, you could do it with a multimeter, but just one little strand will carry the voltage and test as good with a multimeter. Using a load (headlamp) will do a real test of the wiring and see if it's working properly and delivering all the voltage and amperage the starter needs to work.

 

VERY few starter motor problems are mentioned 'round 'ere. Unless your bike is very high mileage, i'd suspect that the battery is part of the problem--even though it shows good voltage.

You could try cleaning both ends of the main ground wire from the negative battery terminal connection to the frame.

To eliminate starter relay as a possible problem, use something metal to short across the 2 large terminals.....after making sure bike's in neutral.

 

If it will not start and the headlight and horn works, it is the BATTERY TERMINALS that usually need cleaning.
A black grease like coating will get all over the battery terminals and so what happens is that the bad connection
prevents the starter cable not being able to carry a load.

Clean the terminals to shiny clean metal and treat the put baking soda on top of the battery with just a little water to neutralize the acid on the outside of the battery.

 

I'd say with fairly high certainty that the problem is starter brushes wore and/or sticking. By tapping the starter motor the brushes made brief contact. It's an 'old' diagnostic trick I've used many times and it means disassemble and inspect your starter motor...or make it a point to stop on the top of hills.

Sometimes putting your bike in a high gear and pushing it a few feet can do the same 'jarring' trick to the starter.

 

IT'S easy and quick to take apart starter if you need to inspect the brushes.

Bet Dizzy could do it in less than 5-7 minutes to remove-inspect-replace motor. Experience and the rigtht tools make things easy.

 

Coincidentally, I 'popped' a starter off of an 86 VF700C just yesterday. The brushes were disintegrated. The commutator (the brass segments the brushes ride on for those of you that don't know) was kinda beat up too. Luckily there's an 'old time' electric shop in town that will refinish the commutator (unless of course it's too bad) and check the armature on their ancient magnetic device (think it's called a growler). Only thing is...their prices went from 4$ to 5$ for that service...but they'll still usually do it while I wait. You don't find service like that very often anymore.

 

That is EXACTLY what is needed now. More REPAIR business, So instead of throwing things away they can be repaired if made well.

 

i agree wholeheartidly i believe that is a rut america has gotten into and it is not a good rutt its the expendable rutt it begins in the supermarket and ends in the houses that are being built today gaurentee they wont be standing in 50 years..

 

I use a simple little aerospace tool called a bonding brush that looks like this,



Mounted in your cordless it takes something that looks like this (just like Don described or similar anyway)



And makes it look like this,



Or in the case of a battery terminal, like this,



Hope everyone likes pictures!

 

Damn Jethro, that's a whip ass little brush, I may have to fetch me one of them. Local hardware stores sell em????

Shoulda Googled before I posted, these guys are right up the street from me http://www.marylandbrush.com/index.php

 

I picked mine up so long ago I can't recall where it came from. Mine has the pilot trimmed so it can be used on flat surfaces. I did a quick Google and found this, Pilot Bonding Brushes Manufacturing & Supplies: Brush research Manufacturing