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Won't start with electric starter but will kick start

M

mtmasean

Active Member
I just finished replacing my stator, regulator, volt regulator and put a refresh charge on the battery. I upgraded from a 22 amp to a 32 amp stator. It is a 1985 FXEF Evo 1340. It did start probably 6-7 times with the electric starter. While I was on the highway heading to St Augustine to meet up with some friends I noticed my tach had stopped working. I did change my speedometer cable yesterday too. Everything worked during my initial test drives after the stator/speedo cable replacement. When I went to start the bike after arriving in St Augustine, nothing. Not even a clunk. You can barely hear anything from the starter. Like power was there but starter didn't turn over. I did notice that when I took my solenoid off during my stator repair that one of the contacts looked like it had welded or made a notch in one contact more than the other. Someone suggested turning the contact 180 to use the side. I'm thinking this may have been a bad idea.

So bottom line I think the solenoid may be the problem but, I don't see how that would have anything to do with the tach. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

I hope I gave enough information to help with your diagnoses. Thank you in advance.
 
I would first place a voltmeter across the battery and check the charging voltage at 1000 & 2500 RPM. Make sure all is good with the charging system first. Even though it is new, you could still have a problem. You did not say how old the battery was. Due to earlier bad parts (regulator), it could now be bad. I would have it load tested.

Is you charging system now 3 phase or beefed up single phase.
From this point you can now move on to the starter issue.
 
I had that problem on my 1980 FXE once. As it turned out it was a broken wire inside of the solenoid that when you just looked at it you couldn't tell that it was broken. You had to move it with something to tell. It was broken right where the insulation had been stripped. Just a thought.

Don't know about the tach. Sorry.
 
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Hoop- The battery is about six months old, I'm going to get the battery checked today. Gotta wait for the place to open and I'll get the voltage readings when it gets a little later in the morning so I'm not my neighbors alarm clock.:D

The charging system I believe is a single charging system since it doesn't specify 3-phase. It is a Compu-Fire P/N 55520 (from their website).

I'm hoping that it is the solenoid and not the charging system. As far as the tach, I think I may have found that problem while I was looking at the wiring diagram. While I was doing the stator job and removing parts, a little black box wouldn't unplug but, the outer cover came off, not completely but showed the copper winding inside. I put the cover back on an kind of moved it out of the way. I'm guessing that is my plug for my tach and may have came loose while I was riding yesterday.

Thanks Kraut for the suggestion on the solenoid wiring, I'll look in to that too.
 
10/4. The 55520 is single phase. Idle speed may not show bunch but at 2500 RPM you should see voltage in the 14's. Checking the charging system & battery is never a waste of time. Then you can move to what Kraut suggested about starter.
 
Hoople said:
10/4. The 55520 is single phase. Idle speed may not show bunch but at 2500 RPM you should see voltage in the 14's. Checking the charging system & battery is never a waste of time. Then you can move to what Kraut suggested about starter.
Click to expand...

Actually, I was referring to the solenoid. The wire was inside of the solenoid. It was a heavy wire that connected to a plate on the inside.
 
Voltage was at 14.33 vdc at 1000 and guessing 2500 since tach wasn't working. I pulled the solenoid and the wire from the other contact had came loose and was only held in place by one of the crimps on the contact. Put a new solenoid on started up like a champ. Going to look under the dash later today to see what is causing the tach to not work. I cleaned the contacts on the little block connector (tach wiring block??) hoping that would correct the tach issue but, no luck. Hopefully, when I take the dash off today maybe the connector under there came loose.

Thanks for the help Hoop and Kraut.
 
Glad to have helped. One other thing, if you can, solder all electrical connections. It might save problems down the road.
 
kraut said:
Glad to have helped. One other thing, if you can, solder all electrical connections. It might save problems down the road.
Click to expand...

I am going to try to do that just to see if it will work and maybe use for a spare. I was able to get a new solenoid Saturday since I was in Daytona at J&P.

I'll have to wait until tomorrow to look at the tach problem. I have duty today and won't be able to work on the bike until tomorrow evening.
 
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