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Jon_W
31-10-12, 09:05 AM
Anyone had this??

The GS won't turn over freely on cold start. Is almost as if the battery is dying, but the battery is new and fully charged. Once started, the bike will run well and re-start fine.

It bumps starts ok and runs ok.

Anyone else had anything similar???
NoYou
31-10-12, 09:20 AM
Anyone had this??

The GS won't turn over freely on cold start. Is almost as if the battery is dying, but the battery is new and fully charged. Once started, the bike will run well and re-start fine.

It bumps starts ok and runs ok.

Anyone else had anything similar???
Had a similar thing on the cb, the culprit was a fried reg/rec over charging the battery. The voltage across the battery was fine when the bike wasn't on, seemed perfectly healthy but it was slowly burning out
Jon_W
31-10-12, 09:34 AM
Have changed the Reg/rect. No difference.
Mitch9128
31-10-12, 09:54 AM
Valve clearances all good i presume?
NoYou
31-10-12, 10:58 AM
Does it make an attempt to turn over or just do nothing?!
Jon_W
31-10-12, 11:27 AM
It turns over very slowly.
Mitch9128
31-10-12, 11:46 AM
Could be carbon brushes in the starter motor i suppose, like a washing machine they go with time. Easier to get a secondhand motor off Ebay than replace them.
NoYou
31-10-12, 01:47 PM
Does the gs have a bendix drive? The one on my RS was a constant cause of starting issues
Jon_W
31-10-12, 02:33 PM
No, uses a sprag clutch.
Dan505
01-11-12, 11:13 AM
mine had this a while back......it was fuel, as it was on a paddock stand the fuel had moved away from the pump, took a fair bit of shaking the tank to sort back to the pump. Fuel filter ok?
Jon_W
01-11-12, 11:21 AM
It fires up fine. The issue is the slow cranking.

I think it may be a dodgy starter switch. Put a battery cut off in parallel and turned over fine this morning... will see again later.
Senna(Dan)
01-11-12, 02:49 PM
Jon I had a similar issue with my old GS, it was -12 outside though.
Battery took forever to fire the engine into life, is the bike kept outside overnight? I know this can affect the battery on these quite badly, when mine was garaged there was no issue but a couple of nights out in the cold and it didn't want to know.

Mine was the battery dying even though it was 2 months old, dealer replaced it FOC but yours might be a different issue.
Gooz
01-11-12, 03:19 PM
sounds more like a tired starter to me, once fired the tolerances are greater, as outer casings and bushes are warm, take it of clean it up and oil it up, worse case its time lost best you may fix it :) not too difficult to strip, will allow you to clean the main contacts too, try shorting the solenoid when cold to eliminate the start button.
Jon_W
01-11-12, 03:37 PM
Cheers guys. That's very interesting Dan. Mine's kept in a garage... the minus 12 I remember.... I was using two batteries to crank the mini over then. The oil was freezing up in the sump!!!! (I know coz I left a sample of oil outside - went to look the next day and it was treacle)

I'm coming to a similar conclusion Gooz. I've jury rigged a manual starter relay in order to eliminate the relay as the issue. Will see how it goes. If it still playes up I'm gonna have to try to strip the motor or buy another....
Jon_W
01-11-12, 03:38 PM
Likey this!!!

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i36/teleSV650/IMG20121101_001.jpg
Mark_Able
01-11-12, 10:20 PM
I'm thinking tired starter... :(
Jon_W
06-12-12, 04:53 PM
Now it's totaly feking died....

The starter is rotating but not the engine. Ar5e!!!

This is apparently common on GS500's.
Jon_W
09-12-12, 06:27 PM
Alternator has come adrift!!!!! :o

AR5E!!!!
Gooz
09-12-12, 07:47 PM
ouch hopefully not taking any casing etc with it ??? last thing you want is a full strip down to find filings :(
Jon_W
10-12-12, 08:53 AM
Luckily it stayed on the crankshaft. However it's knarled the taper it sits on so that'll have to be dressed in both parts before refitting.
Mark_Able
11-12-12, 09:41 PM
Ah yes. Sorry mate, but it happened to one of ours a while back. Your explanation of the symptoms should have rung a bell. We had the bolt that holds the alternator on, come adrift. Started with 'slow starting' issue, then became a 'starter not engaging' issue. Chewed up the end of the crank, but was just about salvageable. If it's properly chewed, you maybe looking at a new crank (or secondhand engine). It's only happened with these Spanish-made piece-of-crap Suzuki's. Jap-built bikes had no such problem. Hope it's all ok, and repairable... :-/
Jon_W
12-12-12, 01:29 PM
Repaired. Was pretty chewed. If it dies it again it's the perminant loctite for the shaft!!!