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Excellent write up. A lot of care, well laid out, well documented.Most people are afraid to deal with electrics, and your article makes it obvious that anyone who is willing to use care can do it.
I am NOT an electrical specialist: far the opposite, ccsailor thinks I am a dummie when he sees me working with electrics:however, by dint of experience, here's a couple things that may help, and a couple things that will, for certain:
1) I have seen several (actually, a disproportionately highnumber of)GL1100 motor cases, where the top starter mount bolt goes in, that are stripped out or badly cross-threaded.
It takes VERY little to cross thread into aluminum: I HIGHLY recommend for that reason(andfor refitting the starter to the fargo-clutch chain sprocket) that the pipe/header be dropped out of the way, to give you clean and clear access to the area, without threat of cross-threading bolts into the engine case. Those little 8mm bolts can be difficult to grasp in that confined space, and you do NOT want to start them with a socket wrench: you are just asking for trouble if you do.
There's no need to remove the pipe (although it is much easier working in that area if you do), just loosen the rear mount and the cross-over clamp, remove the header nuts, and it willdrop down at the front enoughtto clear the area, and give you a straight shot at the bolts going back in. (bear in mind that you MAY need new header crush-ring gaskets to replace the header without leaks, but most often you won't unless they have been used 2-3 times previously, and are crushed completely. Hehe: I expect some raised eyebrows on that one
: properly, they should be replaced every time)
2) When installing the starter back in, with the pipe dropped out of the way, it's a LOT easier to get the starter lined up properly to the splines in the end-gear that is on the chain, with the pipe out of the way. (PS: I have installed many, many of these, and never had a problem lining up the starter-end splines with the gear, already installed in the chain. One reason may be that I NEVER remove the sprocket from the chain unless it is visually and obviously worn, which is rare in the extreme. Thestarter slides out, and thestarter slides in.) I have also installed them sucessfullywith pipe on, and wish I hadn't: it's a PITA, back to the risk of across-threaded starter mount-bolt, and more difficult to get the starter back in easily.
3) The armature end should be in-cut 1mm. "Under-power" starters are caused in large part by wear on the armature which diminishes this in-cut (as well as thebrush-dust clogging the in-cut and other parts).I looked for that aspectin the write-up, and if I missed it : ooops, sorry. The armature end where the brushes contact has slots in it. It rotatesunder the brushes. It should be absolutely smooth, NO burs, NO lineal groves. The spaces between the little copper contacts are about the width of a hacksaw blade, anend ofwhichI use to in-cut those grooves to the 1mm spec. You must be carefull not to bur the edge of the grooves, but that is, (if you looked carefully at the job with a magnifying glass) literallyimpossible to do: you will always get minute burs on the grove edges. Hence, be prepared to clean off the minor burs created, with some 900 grit then some 1200 grit sandpapers, and then use metal polish to polish the armature end as a finishing touch. (If you don't, and the armature is in
any sense rough, be prepared to wear out your brushes very quickly, replace them often, and have a very dirty starter internally) Clean any metal fines and polish compoundout of the area with air, spirits/alcohol, air again. If your brushes are under 7.5 to 8mm (50% approximate wear), you replace them, (although the replacement specs granted by the excellent article that this is appended to are correct at 4+mm). You may as well put new ones in while you are at it. You hopefully won't be doing this again for years: it's a worthy investment. If you noted that one of the brushesis worn substantially (more than .75 to1mm) more than the other brush: then it means that the brush spring is not matched to the other one, or the brush is not sliding properly in it's boxed retainer: clean out the retainer, &check the tension of the bothsprings if you have a tension-scale: you can even out the pressure by simply and cautiously tweaking them. It's not
critical, but if both brushes are putting the same pressure on the armature, they will provide even contact. The measure of the fit is asimilar wear pattern: all things being equal, and the brush-compound being for all intents and purposesidentical on each brush.
4) ANY grease used on the moving parts should be a HIGH heat very good quality. (I use a silicon based high-heat high-qualitybrake grease successfully, whether rightly or wrongly, and it has worked just fine over the years.) You do not want grease getting heated and moving about inside the starter, and they do get very warm. I also individually grease both sides of any shims/spacers before installing them, and cue-tip a bit into the cap-end of the starter for the armature end bushing lubrication.
5) The number of spacers in the starter can vary, based on the amount of end-play in the armature, so don't get hung-up if yours is different. Keep the end-play (starter when assembled, pulling and pushing the armature in and out of the starter) to a minumum by using thin high-tensile washer-spacers with the right ID and OD. Do not get that tolerance too tight, there should be a small amount of play, but anything over (at a guess 10 to 15 /1000 or so, I go by feel, not gauges, on this) should be spaced out back to 5/1000 or so with additional spacers.
6) That was a good note by a couple of you on the underlying lock-nut on the starter power-strap lead. I screwed one up without thinking many years ago, and immediately took an old 10mm open-end wrench, and ground it down to about3 to 3.5 mm thick to slide into that narrow space and act as a 'hold' on that nut while removing the power-strap to the starter. It's an
essentialtool when removing these starter straps (don't try using needle-nose pliers or vise-grips: the chance of slippage is far too great: sacrifice a $4 wrench for your $400 starter: the wrench will always be in your kit and is darned handy anyway). If that base-nut turns,the whole stud is turned. That stud is firmly affixed to the shoes inside the starter, and you WILL break that contact if that stud turns even a small amount. Kiss the starter goodbye.
6) It's a lot easier to KEEP the system good than to be rebuilding (worse yet, replacing)starters on an ongoing basis. There's some simple things that should be dealt with to maintain good continuity in that system.
a) The main ground-strap for this starting system is located under the rear top motor mount (triangular metal plate under the drivers thigh, left side, high up). That plate should REGULARLY (once per year) be removed, and the terminal end eye-let lightly sanded, then polished, then cleaned, and lightly greased with electrical contact grease. The motor-case at that contact point should be treated the same way, and then replaced and tightened down to proper torque specs. (Note: you should take a bit of weight off the motor fromunderneath while removing this mount-plateto ensure the motor does not tweak in theframe even a little bitwhile doing this: misaligning the motor and thereby the two 12mm short bolts, and having a heck of a time getting them back in without cross-threading them (yes, I've seen that as well).Take a little weight off with any jack that will fit under the engine.)
>>>Secondary note: there is a contact cleaner/lubricant out there that I found years ago to work on my computers, cleaning and lubing RAM, PCI cards, slots etc: that is the best thing I found for ALL electrical contacts (such as the plate/strap mentioned aboveand terminals: bloody excellent stuff. It's called
NU-TROL, made by MG Chemicals (and no, I don't own shares). It cleans contacts, and adds a layer of corrosion-proofing preservative as well. I spray it into and on ALL contacts, terminals, switches: in short, everything that carries an electrical current via contact, whether switch contacts, terminal plugs, etc.
I may use a different cleaner which dissolves/gasses off totally to clean a particularly dirty contact area, but I will ALWAYS finish up the job with this Nu-Trol stuff for the anti-corrosion effect.
Do NOT use this or anything elsethat leaves a filmon ignition points on GL1000's. Use the dry stuff there, or just plain alcohol.<<
b) Any terminals leading to the starter system should be cleaned regularly as above: positive and negative terminals on the starter relay, the fuse-mount points, the power-strap on the starter itself.
Keeping good strong continuity to the starter system is more than half the battle, prevents over-draw,over-heating, excess brush and armature wear, andkeeps your starter in good condition much longer.
(By the time a bike is 5 years old, terminals will start to corrode in the best of circumstances, unless in a totally clean and totally dry environment: which is practically impossible. Add 10 years. Then 15 years. 20 years. >>>If you buy an older bike, and
do not clean and refresh every terminal, connection, clean out and lubeswitches, and otherwise refresh the electrical circuitry: you are quite nutty, my friend. You are just awaiting electrical breakdown, with a timeline as to when it is going to happen beingframed on a negative and expensive exponential scale)
WEAR:
Those who have that starter button on for more than 3-4 second bursts when starting anythingare overheating the starter. If your "Wing" isn't starting within that time span after three tries, then you have a fuel or ignition problem anyway.Check those systems out before continuing to abuse your poor starter.
Give it a minute between those bursts as well, so that your starter can be allowed to
. Just another tip for starter longevity. Doesn't play havoc with yourbattery as much either.
DIGRESSION to another area of: Starting a non-auto-choke Goldwing: IE: not an 1800:
In many older "Wings", expecially the GL1100's, (regardless of so called cross-overs that are supposed to allow transfer/distribution of fuels in the plenum), I have noted that the compression on the carb with the accelerator pump (#3 on 1100's, as an example) that that cylinder is down about 3-4 PSI in compression, while the others are at par.
Anreasonable (? one man's opinion)assumption is that this is a by-product of washing that 'can' down while starting the bike, or a severly rich runningmixture on that one 'can'. I find the later reason to be unlikely, due solely to the regular occurance of the diminished compression on that
one cyclinder.
HENCE:
Do NOT pump the accelerator (meaning don't twist the throttle on a couple times before or during starting): you are just feeding raw fuel to the cyclinder(s), washing it (them) down, starting dry, and wearing out your motor needlessly.
For those 'Wings" with a manual choke (which means pretty much anything that is not auto-choked such as fuel injected models): screw the throttle on slowly just a little, THEN quickly slide your choke on when the engine starts to turn over. That way you'll be feeding 'rich' to the engine when it needs it, will be burning the fuel as it enters the "firing area" (compression chambers), and will neither be flooding it, or over-enriching it which washes the oil film off the cylinder walls.
And lastly, for the jump-on-and-go rider: warm the thing up, let that rich-mix dryness on the cylinder wallsget lubed by crack-caselubricant circulationbefore turning into "Mario" and zooming down the road. I would expect to get onlyabout 50% of the
proper life out of an engine that is not properly warmed up, even though it'll start and run smoothly even when it is 60psi (80psi, running smoothly, but is asgutless as a hung side of beef)under Honda's rebuild time (142psi, GL1000/GL1100).
Ride safe.
