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First Gen Starter Ground Upgrade


dingy

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Attached are some pictures of the modification I made to the starter on my 83 1st gen.

 

The purpose of this is to give a better path to ground for the brush plate. Stock version allows a path to ground through the tabs around the plate.

 

Snaggletooth had posted about this mod several weeks ago, but I do not know of any pictures that are available to show it.

 

Gary

 

43192.jpg

 

This shows the location of the drilled & tapped hole. I used a 4mm screw to attach wire with. Hole is at 2 o'clock position.

 

43193.jpg

 

This shows location of hole from outside of cover.

 

43194.jpg

 

The hole in the brush plate is shown at the 7 o'clock position.

 

43195.jpg

 

Picture of grounding wires. I used two 14 gauge wires. The terminals for 12 gauge and up had too large of a mounting lug for mounting screw size I wanted to use.

 

 

43196.jpg

 

Wires attached to end cover.

 

43197.jpg

 

Wires attached to brush plate.

 

43198.jpg

 

View of starter mounted on engine. I have since added an 8 gauge wire that runs from the bottom mounting bolt for the starter to the right side of the engine block. I attached wire to the block at the same point the main ground wire from the battery attaches.

Edited by Freebird
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  • 2 weeks later...

Dingy that was a nice post. I just finished doing the mod you posted. It works awesome. Hot or cold makes no difference now. The engine just spins - FAST. No drag at all. Thanks for posting. The pictures helped a lot.

 

 

For anyone else that thought about doing it. It's a fair amount of work. Mostly to get the starter out. You have to remove both front exhaust headers. There is two rad hoses in the way that has to be removed and the thermostat housing. Once the starter is out it only takes a few minutes to do the mod. It's well worth the work. It'll be so nice to stop for gas or coffee after a long drive and not have to worry about starting.

Edited by elag
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So the factory setup has no screws holding the brush plate to the starter housing? :think:

 

No, it just floats in there.

 

The tabs are what is used to supply the ground path.

 

There is no 'hard' connection to ground.

 

Gary

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Hey Gary. Why two wires? Just making sure they do the job??

 

These were just a supplement to the existing path to ground.

 

They probably alone would not be enough to carry the full starter current.

 

It's sort of cramped in there, but I think you could add some more.

 

I would have liked to use larger wires but the eyelet that the screw goes through is way to large on #12 connectors for the size of screw I wanted to use.

 

A single 14 gauge wire has a safety rating of 32 amps. I doubled that by using two runs of wire. The safety rating is probably 60 to 70 % of actual carrying capacity

 

This is an extremely short run which will help increase that somewhat.

 

Also it is basically a fail safe type of application, worst case it fries and then is in an enclosed steel container, already shorted to ground.

 

Gary

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There is a Japanese engineer somewhere that deserves a kick in the bits and pieces for that one. ;)

 

Did adding the 8 gauge wire make any difference?

 

That is why it made so much difference when I pulled starter and cleaned.

 

Gary are you putting solid engine mounts in this thing??

 

I'm not sure if extra ground really helps or not. It was kind of a feel good thing I did. I had an extra ground cable off of my parts bike I cut and soldered a new connection on the end.

 

I haven't really got a chance to try this out much.

 

The 83 mounts are ribbed. They only have about 50% contact area to the frame.

 

Its got solid mounts now thanks to SGN.

 

Gary

Edited by dingy
updated mounts
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So the factory setup has no screws holding the brush plate to the starter housing? :think:

 

No. The plate is just pressed between the middle and end of the housing. There are small tabs on the plate that are supposed to make contact with the housing. But they are very loose fitting and with heat expansion loses contact even more.

 

Hey Gary. Why two wires? Just making sure they do the job??

 

Tight fit. Small wire is much easier to fit into the housing. Two small wires are much easier to work with then one large wire and carry as much current as one large wire. The wires are very short only a couple of inches, so no problem carring the current. The wires from the brush plate to the brushes look to be about 12 guage anyway. So the two 14 guage wires plus the ground tabs will easily carry more current then needed.

 

No, it just floats in there.

 

The tabs are what is used to supply the ground path.

 

There is no 'hard' connection to ground.

 

Gary

 

I even upgraded my battery cables to 4 guage and ran a 4 guage ground from the battery a mounting bolt on my starter. It help a bit but still had problems with starting when the engine was hot. Only after doing this starter mod did I get starter spinning the engine over like it should. Hot or cold.

 

When I saw your post I could see what the problem was. When I took the starter apart I looked for any arch marks on the brushplate. There were slight discoloring at the tabs so I knew right away this mod would work. Anyone with starter dragging problems - do this. You'll be impressed at the difference it makes.:thumbsup:

 

 

 

Once again. Thanks Gary. Your $2 starter mod works better then a $500 new starter.

Edited by elag
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In Fact two smaller Wires can safely carry more Current than on bigger Wire.

 

That's because Current is traveling only on the Outside of the Wire, or if it's a stranded Wire, on the Outside of each strand.

 

It only get's dangerous when one of the smaller Wires ought to take the whole Load, in other Words, when the Connection on one Wire fails.

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The starter internal ground to an external bolt then wires to the main cleaned ground wire on the right side of the engine. Positive cable thoroughly cleaned too then greased.

The starter turns over instantly hot or cold, no drag.

This combined with a good carb cleaning and routine usage my Venture always starts in a second (or even sitting for a month).

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  • 4 months later...

Just wanted to add my thanks here. Just did the mod this weekend. I haven't gotten it up to full hot, but it spins fast anyways. So thanks dingy, and a thanks to snaggletooth, because it sounds like he did this mod and inspired dingy to do it with pics. The pics helped a lot!

 

Also, I figured that the engine ground wire is long enough to be moved over to the starter, so no other wire is needed. Starter is grounded and engine is too. Works great.

 

-Andrew

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Hey Andrew,

 

I'm taking no credit on that idea. It's been around for many years but hardly anyone I know ever did it to a bike. As far as on mine, the PO was the creative one but his method was a bit bizarre. A little too complicated. But it worked. I just simplified what he had done.

 

Dingy was the one that brought all to light with a simple way to make the mod and posted the pics to explain how to do it. He's good at that. The subject had been discussed several times around here but when Gary posted the pics you could almost hear the collective "BING". It made sense then. As you saw there isn't all that great of a contact area on the brush plate to create that needed ground. It does help a lot.

 

Such a simple thing to do. That is.... once you have the starter out. LOL!

 

But glad it helped and hang around. For the cost of membership......the info here is priceless. Not to mention....this crowd can be rather entertaining at times. :whistling:

 

:2BLUE:

 

Mike

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  • 8 months later...

This forum is proving to be invaluable already and I've been a member for and hour...

 

This problem has plagued me since I owned my bike...Not fun getting stranded on the Throgs Neck Bridge in NY at the toll plaza waiting for the bike to cool down enough to start!

 

Thanks to all who brought this up with a solution! I'd only heard about gel-cell batteries and "that's the way it is" arguments elsewhere. I probably have 2 extra batteries now that are just fine with the starter properly grounded...

 

Sounds like mod'ing the starter if it's a 4 brush works better than a new starter without the mod.

Edited by mat68046
I read more of the thread...Newbie mistake
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I'm not sure but I belive the 2nd gen starter are all for brush now. I think they will be direct bolt in. Somebody will pop in here shortly with that info.

 

Doing the ground mod on a four brush is a bit trickier as there is a lot less room to work with, but it can be done. Dingy has pics posted somewhere on that also.

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This forum is proving to be invaluable already and I've been a member for and hour...

 

This problem has plagued me since I owned my bike...Not fun getting stranded on the Throgs Neck Bridge in NY at the toll plaza waiting for the bike to cool down enough to start!

 

Thanks to all who brought this up with a solution! I'd only heard about gel-cell batteries and "that's the way it is" arguments elsewhere. I probably have 2 extra batteries now that are just fine with the starter properly grounded...

 

Sounds like mod'ing the starter if it's a 4 brush works better than a new starter without the mod.

 

I put in an Odyssey PC680 Battery, (some like the DEKA which works well also), a new R/R, and a 4 brush V-Max starter which I found on FleaBay below. Hasn't given me a problem since....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=400169818123&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT

 

Dingy's mod works well also, if you want to hang on to the current starter....Ken

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This forum is proving to be invaluable already and I've been a member for and hour...

 

This problem has plagued me since I owned my bike...Not fun getting stranded on the Throgs Neck Bridge in NY at the toll plaza waiting for the bike to cool down enough to start!

 

Thanks to all who brought this up with a solution! I'd only heard about gel-cell batteries and "that's the way it is" arguments elsewhere. I probably have 2 extra batteries now that are just fine with the starter properly grounded...

 

Sounds like mod'ing the starter if it's a 4 brush works better than a new starter without the mod.

 

 

Here is a couple of pics of what I did to 4 brush VMax starter. Not as pretty as the 2 brush unit but functional.

 

I used a torch to heat up plate and wire fast enough to get silver solder to stick without a lot of heat build up.

 

Gary

Edited by dingy
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Here is a couple of pics of what I did to 4 brush VMax starter. Not as pretty as the 2 brush unit but functional.

 

I sud a torch to heat up plate and wire fast enough to get silver solder to stick without a lot of heat build up.

 

Gary

 

Just a quick question.

 

Aren't two of the brushes grounded to the plate?

 

You could have used the screws holding the brushes to run a ground strap to the cap.

 

Let me know if I am wrong about that.

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Just a quick question.

 

Aren't two of the brushes grounded to the plate?

 

You could have used the screws holding the brushes to run a ground strap to the cap.

 

Let me know if I am wrong about that.

 

 

That is what I did on the 2 brush starter. That was my first choice, but could not find a way to make it work.

 

On the 4 brush starter there was not enough room to get the screw and the wire terminal eye in there. The hole that is in the plate already is right up against the vertical leg of the brush holder.

 

I have a few better pictures at home.

 

Gary

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That is what I did on the 2 brush starter. That was my first choice, but could not find a way to make it work.

 

On the 4 brush starter there was not enough room to get the screw and the wire terminal eye in there. The hole that is in the plate already is right up against the vertical leg of the brush holder.

 

I have a few better pictures at home.

 

Gary

 

Don't worry about pics for me .... I'll happily take your word for it.

 

Did you see that I fixed my Fuel Sender issue?

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