whats the point of a electric starter??

[nlovern]

Hi,
Nathan here. Ever since i got my 82 XS650 in sept it has been a great bike. The electric starter works good but it hardly will ever start with it. One kick when warm ia all it needs.Even with a warm motor it wont start up with the starter.(rarely) When cold the elexctric start is worthless. ( the key off kicking then key on has been working great these cold days for cold weather starting.)
My battery is 12.5 off and with idle its at 13.5 and goes up to 14.6 when motor revs up so the batt and charging system is working good.(for now)
Any reason why it wont start good with the electric starter?
Nathan lovern
XS650
DS7 250

 

[jayel]

starter may be drawing so much current it leaves nothing for the ignition, clean tighten all connections including grounds or wire in a 30A relay for the coil(s)

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=330-070

http://www.parts-express.com/resources/automotive-relays.cfm

basically you wire it so the coil gets full battery power independent from the rest of the system

 

[gggGary]

Quick test is power the coil from a different battery see how it starts. See how much voltage you have at the coil it might surprise you.

 

[pamcopete]

jayel,

I used to suggest the same thing. Use a relay to provide power directly to the coil from the battery. The problem is that some of these relays will release due to the low battery voltage when starting so you end up with no power to the coil. However, when you test the relay, it works fine.

The relay should work with 9 volts or less, so test it with a 9 volt battery.

With the PAMCO ignition, you can wire the coil directly to the battery through a fuse. The sensor will not turn on the transistor with no power applied to it, so the coil will not draw any current with the key / kill switch off, which is still used to power up the PAMCO on the red wire. The PAMCO will produce a usable spark all the way down to 6 volts.

Here is a video of a PAMCO driving a 17-6903 "Ultimate" coil from a 6 volt lantern battery:

If you are going to leave the wiring stock, then by all means clean the kill switch contacts as they have probably never been cleaned in 40 years.

As for the reluctant starter motor, it probably needs to have the commutator cleaned on a lathe, like these pics show:

Before:

After:

Install new brushes as well after cleaning the commutator.