I'm sorry, but I tried a search:

Starwalt (too vague)
Starwalt's disease (didn't give many hits)
starwalt's (again too vague)

Is it similar to goat's syndrome?

I've got Annguyen1981's disease--terminal postwhoring.  Is there a cure doc?

Quote from: Chilly Willy on November 19, 2006, 10:09:53 PM
I've got Annguyen1981's disease--terminal postwhoring.  Is there a cure doc?

Yep ban the blighter for a week 

Quote from: Chilly Willy on November 19, 2006, 10:09:53 PM
Annguyen1981's disease--terminal postwhoring

I likey...  I likey a lot...

IIRC it's self destruction of the starter motor due ot overheating caused by prolonged use of the starter. Look at Starwalt's avatar.

I just sent this PM to starwalt...

maybe you guys could help too...

Quote

I am having problems with starting my GS..  Especially on colder mornings when it's been sitting all night, and at cold nights when I haven't snuck out from work to go for a little joy ride.  It seems like I have to ride the bike a little for it not to happen.

Basically, if it's a morning that it's doomed to happen, I push the starter button, and it starts cranking, but a little faded than normal.  Soon after that, I hear a banging noise from the engine somewhere.

I took the battery out and let it charge in my charger once, and that seemed to help that time.  Although I can't imagine why a bad battery would cause the banging noise.  I've had vehicles with bad batteries, and the only symptom is the faded cranking and then nothing.

Does this sound like your problem with the starter?

I have made a thread about this here:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=31948.0

Thankz
An

Quote

Quote from: MarkusN on November 20, 2006, 04:25:33 AM
IIRC it's self destruction of the starter motor due ot overheating caused by prolonged use of the starter. Look at Starwalt's avatar.

Close, but not correct.

Starwalt's Syndrome (Disease) is the destruction of the starter motor due to the seizing of the starter clutch on the crankshaft while happily motoring along at any speed.

When the clutch locks onto the crankshaft, it instantly engages the starter gear, idler and then starter motor. The poor starter motor gets spun up to some astonishing RPM that causes it to fly apart internally and then continue to chew itself up to the point of total lock down.

This is a very bad thing and almost a total write off for the starter motor.
Thus my avatar.

The cure is removing the LH cover, pulling the generator rotor/clutch/starter gear and fixing the issue. My issue was a worn through shim that separates the clutch from the starter gear. The starter gear chewed into the shim and locked down on it.

You can jump into the original thread HERE.
Scroll down the page to see the pics and how I got it apart.

Goat's Disease is the destruction of the rotor magnets, usually due to delamination/ungluing of them while happily motoring along at any speed.

An's problem is different.

It sounds more like a case of extreme crank shaft end play, cam chain slap/tension, or some issue with the valve train, gear train, connecting rods, etc.

Does it do this while cold and then fades away after warming up?
How about positional...ie side stand but not center stand?
Or if on side stand, not when you mount up and get vertical?

I agree that your battery has nothing to do with this.

We need more data.

Quote from: starwalt on November 20, 2006, 10:13:49 AM

An's problem is different.

It sounds more like a case of extreme crank shaft end play.

We know.

That sounds very much like srinaths variation of goats ... however it will bang one time and promptly start.
Starter clutch slippage. Replace the gear it bites into and the clutch itself. Like $95 and $25 respectively. BTW the new GS'es seem to have gone to shaZam!. The 89 lasted 45K, and I know of 2 04+'s that have had it go and both are warrantied repairs. One guy I literally told him to push it to the dealer and show it to him right there ... cos after you ride it there its not doing it any more. Anyway stealer is flaking on him. I told him to tell the service guys that Srinath said its a bad Starter clutch. WTF - 3K miles and dead.
Of course the srinath ignored it for 1.5 years till it busted the magnet ... and the srinath was clueless till it stopped charging the battery ... 
Cool.
Srinath.

Quote from: seshadri_srinath on November 20, 2006, 12:32:40 PM
That sounds very much like srinaths variation of goats ... however it will bang one time and promptly start.
Starter clutch slippage. Replace the gear it bites into and the clutch itself. Like $95 and $25 respectively. BTW the new GS'es seem to have gone to shaZam!. The 89 lasted 45K, and I know of 2 04+'s that have had it go and both are warrantied repairs. One guy I literally told him to push it to the dealer and show it to him right there ... cos after you ride it there its not doing it any more. Anyway stealer is flaking on him. I told him to tell the service guys that Srinath said its a bad Starter clutch. WTF - 3K miles and dead.
Of course the srinath ignored it for 1.5 years till it busted the magnet ... and the srinath was clueless till it stopped charging the battery ... 
Cool.
Srinath.

Is does sound like your version.

I basically try to start on cold mornings.  if I can't get it to start, I use my car to jump the GS.  Once the GS is started, even if I shut the bike off and try again, the bike will start right away.  I won't happen twice in one day.  As long as the engine is one for a little bit, the problem disappears.

I have gotten this problem while the bike is upright and on it's side-stand, so position doesn' have anything to do with it.  The temp does IMO.  It only happens after a cold period of "sleep" when I haven't riden it for about 7-12 hours or so.  But when the outside temp is warm, no problems at all.

I'm currently dealing with a classic case of Starwalt's disease on my used and abused '89 project bike.  The PO had started to "fix" it, but in reality appears to have cracked the back edge of the rotor cover and possibly bent the starter clutch gear by using (my best guess) a crowbar to get them off (or try to in the case of the starter gear/rotor).  Que Napolion Dynanmite: IDIOT!  

In my research, I noticed an idler gear is $34.10 from ronayers.com, starter clutch assy is indeed $96.  

I tried to fix mine by cleaning-up all of the burrs on the gear and flipping the shim around, but that didn't quite do it.  It would operate properly until I got the lat bit of torque onto the rotor mounting nut, then it would hang-up.  Must be a few thou of interference somewhere that's doing it...  I think I'm going to buy a new shim and try it.  If that doesn't work, it's a whole new starter clutch...

Wondertwin reminds me to mention that the shim/gear relationship is totally dependent on oil exiting the crankshaft beneath the starter gear. If you follow the above link on my rebuild (should call it an "ignore" for all the progress I've made  ) there are some pics showing the oil channels in the starter gear that push it toward the shim/gear interface.

I too cleaned and deburred my gear, but had no issues with locking down after reaching torque on the rotor bolt.

For less than US$50, the PO could have made a rotor bump puller like I did. The darn die was the most expensive part of the tool.

BTW, I got my shim used from Daveypoo. That and some extra clutch dogs, sans pins and springs.

Starwalt - Sliding hammer - for like $4 (postage) you could have borrowed mine ... BTW mine is a front axle off a Vulcan, a thick round plate with a precise hole in it (Lets just call it a fat ass washer) and a round heavy block with a larger hole than the axle in it with handles. All powdercoated black.
Yea available for costs of postage. And the Mofo is heavy.
I also have a savage rotor puller ... far more cool than this thing.
Cool.
Srinath.

I considered the axle/puller as mentioned in some of the manuals, but figured if I eff'd up the axle that'd be two things to repair. 

Now I have too many GS's in the garage and spare axles to eff up!

At least I keep it all in one type -- a trend (or another disease!). 

I made a puller much like srinath described, though with an RD350 front axle.  Really, I'd not worry about messing an axle up, as the impact needed to dislodge the rotor isn't that severe.  Plus, you can get about 10 threads in there at least!  One thing I did do though is, noticing that there is some slight axial play in the crank, was pull the crank towards me as far as it would co before impacting the rotor.  That way, it wouldn't slap over in the crankcase.

BTW, I ordered my shim yesterday ($5 at the local stealership), so I'll should figure out if that was the problem in a week or so.  My shim was pretty buggered-up, and even though I ground the burrs off of it, the original damage was pretty severe.  There's a good possibility it warped the shim and made it a bit "thicker" in the stack-up somehow.

My 89 rotor was so tight on there that it had to be welded in and then yanked out. Not easy. But that was after 48K miles. The Savage I was getting the thing from last month was also insanely tight and broke that tool. Ridiculous.
Cool.
Srinath.

UPDATE:

For the last two days, it's been REALLY, f*cking, unbelievably, obnoxously freezing.  I start the GS, and right off the bat, the battery is dead or almost dead.  Lights work, but it only cranks a little bit, then stops.

I think replacing the battery will solve this, but I don't wanna spend the $$$ since I'm getting a new bike.

Keeping the battery on a trickle charger might be a good idea/way to keep a battery warm on cold winter nights; to keep the water in the battery from freezing.

You did check the fluid levels, right?

Quote from: scratch on November 23, 2006, 10:25:25 AM
Keeping the battery on a trickle charger might be a good idea/way to keep a battery warm on cold winter nights; to keep the water in the battery from freezing.

You did check the fluid levels, right?

Yup.

Gas is in the tank, and oil is at the right level.





















Just kidding with ya.  Yeah, the battery level is good.

I didn't start up the bike at all today, until around 7pm.  I tried, and the batteyr seemed VERY dead.

I unhooked the battery so I could charge it, and noticed that there was A LOT of corrosion on the negative terminal.  What would cause this?  A bad battery?