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Not Starting

TLAndrews

TLAndrews
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Hi all, I have a 1981 CB750c, that I recently got. I think it is largely stock, no major alterations that I can identify. The problem I'm having is that when I turn the key I have lights and power to the bike but it won't start. I push the ignition button and the headlight dims a little but nothing else happens. I'm a newb but I guess this indicates the starter button works so it must be the wiring downstream or the starter itself. I pulled off the starter solenoid and some of it's cables and everything looks pretty gnarly so I'm ordering a replacement because I figure I will need it at some point even if this isn't the fix I need right now. I will update once I get the new part installed. Does anyone have suggestions on videos/resources on electrical and starter issues? Suggestions on what I may need to do next or if I'm thinking in the wrong direction? Thanks!
 
An old battery can light up everything to seem to work but not the starter, it pulls 10X the amps the other things do. Battery 12.2 volt or under and it's dead. The tenths there count. A good battery is from 12.8 to maybe 12.3 then trouble lower than that.
 
My battery is actually new. I've been riding with it for a month and checked it with my multimeter and it has been consistently working. I can try putting it on the charger I got just in case but even using a weak battery (like the one that came with the bike when I bought it) I could squeeze out a weak start, whereas, this is nothing at all. I should also clarify that this scenario of not starting happened once previously but then it miraculously started right up after it sat for a half hour completely turned off, I rode it home, and the next day it wouldn't start again and hasn't started since.
 
We can go round and round about the battery until the earth dies and it still won't start if you don't verify the numbers I gave (for a reason), your skills mean nothing if we do not get that clear. A weak start is not battery turning starter slowly, they get even worse, to a click only and starter does nothing or even worse to nothing and not even a click. Yet the lights and other will still seem to work. That absolutely is NOT a check for a good battery.

Please verify the exact battery voltage or we can go no further. Putting it 'on the charger' means nothing as well, we have to have proof that goes past that being we get that every day and the batteries still end up being dead.

Still, assuming battery is good by being new, you can bypass the solenoid to go directly through starter by using a set of pliers to put one handle on a big battery positive cable at the solenoid and the other handle on the other big cable coming out of solenoid to starter and that will make starter spin up but be ready for possible sparks doing it, hurts nothing. That tells you starter solenoid is bad.

No insult intended at all on the above but others read these threads and the most mis-aligned legend of all is that batteries are good if the lights and other come on and it was 'just charged'; thousands if not millions of man-hours are wasted right there. I say that having been there so many times I would die before I quit counting them. Why a give back on the battery volts settles most questions, even new batteries can be bad if the typical Chinese one most commonly bought.

These early DOHC have a major issue with alt rotors that can fail in a 100 different ways, one is to slightly undercharge to drive bike a month until battery gets slightly low enough it then refuses to start right. That rotor fail is the most common failure the bikes do. FYI.
 
'...then it miraculously started right up after it sat for a half hour completely turned off,'

The mark of a bad, old, or new but run down on charge battery, they commonly expire then seem to do better later after they sit, it's because the plates absorb more acid to slightly recharge and luck renders a last gasp start.

Or just a dead solenoid working when it wants to. Sometimes tapping on it while cranking will help.
 
Yeah, no worries about this being insulting, I've been told by everyone I talked to that batteries and charging systems can't be trusted so I've never assumed it is good simply by being new. That is why I said I've been testing it with my multimeter since I got it about a month ago. In that time it has been consistently above 12.5 and it's only dropped down below 12 briefly when it's cranking which I understood to be normal. That is what I mean when I say it has consistently been working and I haven't had to use the charger I bought. I just put the multimeter on it again and it is saying 12.55 same as when I first posted which is why I thought my battery is not the problem. I was also suspicious of the charging system several weeks ago (around when I got the new battery) so I did the test where you have the multimeter on the battery and rev the engine to see what it does and it went up to 14 with my hand on the gas so that lead me to think that it isn't an alternator issue. Am I on the right track with that?

Anyway, that is why I got to where I was with suspecting the solenoid, the starter, or some connection in between there. I ordered a new solenoid with a new wire and fuse so, like I said, even if that isn't the current problem I'm going to preventatively take care of it.
 
Battery apparently OK.

'I did the test where you have the multimeter on the battery and rev the engine to see what it does and it went up to 14 with my hand on the gas so that lead me to think that it isn't an alternator issue. Am I on the right track with that?'

Depends. If the rpm not high enough maybe no. They can charge fine at lower rpm and yet fail out at higher. The field wire wraps are affected by centrifugal force since they spin and why all the problems with rotors. The rotor can be fine at lower rpm then quit charging at higher, BTDT personally. Got stranded 100+ miles from homw when battery ran down at 70 mph, came back home at 40 and no trouble at all, the battery had charged back up.
 
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