I might as well add this here, I was going to do a separate post, but I’ve been complaining about my lazy electric starter on my ‘77 D , almost from the beginning. I took the cable off and cleaned up the post on the starter terminal , which was quite rusty, but it didn’t make a significant difference.
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I had lately been thinking of buying a new starter cable and pulling my starter motor off and disassembling it and polish up the stator and check the brushes etc. But I thought before I bit that bullet, I would try a heavier battery in it. The battery that I had in it was a couple of years old and in our extreme heat, that’s beginning to get old. So I decided to buy a Deka ETX15L, 220 CCA and 14AH, is a nice strong battery, and it has a lot of fans here on this site. It seems better made than the non name cheapos I’ve been buying.
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So, how does it work you ask? Well by my unscientific seat of the pants, I’d say it works much better. This bike has never been an easy bike to start with the kick starter, I usually get tired of kicking it and just let my electric starter do it’s slow motion Ruh…ruh…ruh thing. Here is a short video of the first start after installing the new battery. Bike had been sitting for a couple of weeks and this was in the morning after a cold night,
Not only does it start better with the electric start, but a couple days ago I rolled it outside to go for a ride and usually in cold weather, I kick it over a few times with the key off just to get some oil and gas moving, but today , after my second key off kick, I switched on the key and gave it one more prod and
it roared to life! I’m beginning to believe that my old battery which would start my warm bike up just fine, just didn’t have enough cranking power to start a cold motor with any authority.