Where to spray starter fluid?

[FluffyDog6]

No start condition on a GL1500SE.

Where can I spray starter fluid without taking the whole bike apart?

Thanks.

[Rambozo]

Measure battery voltage while cranking.
No easy place to spray, but no start from low voltage is way more common on the 1500.
They will often only fire when you release the starter button.

[FluffyDog6]

Measure battery voltage while cranking.
No easy place to spray, but no start from low voltage is way more common on the 1500.
They will often only fire when you release the starter button.

Even if it is spinning briskly?

I’ve run the battery down and charged it up twice.

[blupupher]

The air intake is just behind the little cover on the left of the shelter.

But getting starting fluid from there all the way through the tubing and around past the filter, not sure how well it would work.

I guess you could always give it a try, sometimes it atomizes enough to get all the way to the carbs.

pics taken from this video of removing carbs.


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[Rambozo]

Even if it is spinning briskly?

I’ve run the battery down and charged it up twice.

The starter will spin over quite fast at 10-11 volts, but the plugs will not fire.
If you can hear the starter slow down at all you are way past where it will start. Not a great design in my opinion. I like it to be the other way around where the plugs will fire long after the starter can no longer crank. So if the motor turns at all it can start.
The 1500 with a slightly low battery all you can do is tap and release the starter and sometimes it will catch after you let off the button. Or you can push start it. There are some partial fixes by adding a relay to give the coils a direct power feed. Someday I might try a DC to DC converter so that the ignition can see 13 plus volts even if the battery is down to 9 or so. Then it might behave.

[FluffyDog6]

What is a good voltage to see while cranking?

[Rambozo]

Just checked mine and it's 11.2 and rising while spinning the starter. A little lower during the initial inrush (first half second) but this meter isn't fast enough to grab that reading. Maybe a year or two old Odyssey AGM battery.

When I first heard about this issue, I thought people were exaggerating. But slowly my bike started doing the start upon release thing. I couldn't really hear any difference in the starter speed. The cranking voltage was still in the 10's but it was not starting while cranking. I had a new battery on the shelf that was on my list of things to install. I changed it and bingo, problem solved. I have yet to measure the voltage at the coils and see if I am losing too much through dirty connectors, but it is on my list. I don't like that it is so sensitive to voltage.

[FluffyDog6]

Thanks for physically checking. I am going to try a new battery.

[FluffyDog6]

After putting a new battery in, there was no change in the starting.

It turns out, after consulting with an old greybeard, that "the carbs had lost their prime". By blowing some air from a blow gun into the tank (sealed with an old rag) it started right up!

I am now soaking the gas cap in seafoam, but what else would cause the carbs to lose their prime? It runs fine, has plenty of power and starts quickly - other than this one time.

[Rambozo]

The fuel pump should be running when you are cranking. If it's not, something is wrong.
Yeah as long as the carbs are full it's not a problem, but it will be waiting to strand you if you don't take care of it.

[FluffyDog6]

Not sure what to do then.

The bike runs, so the fuel pumps should be OK, right?

They greybeard felt if was a restricted gas cap, and it did go "whoosh" when we opened it.

I'm getting somewhat concerned -- especially since no one but me will wrench on them any more.

[Rambozo]

I would guess the pump is ok. Honda has pressure and volume tests you can use to confirm that. The two things that that control fuel flow during cranking, are having enough vacuum to open the petcock, and having an electrical signal to the fuel pump. I believe it uses pulses from the pulse generators, but I don't know enough about the ECU and how it controls the pump. 88-89 was one way, then I think 90- was all the same? I know there are topics here about that, so you can research that. Put a volt meter or test light on the fuel pump wire and crank on it to see that the pump gets power. Not sure if the pump runs if you have the kill switch off, but that was how I was able to get it to crank long enough without starting to do testing. My bike tends to light up even without any choke unless it is crazy cold outside, so hard to test extended cranking.

[Solo So Long]

If there is a partial vacuum in the gas tank, the pump is working fine and the vent is NOT.

It will probably start just fine with the gas cap off, which confirms a stuck or clogged vent.