Is my starter gone?

I picked up a 1982 Xj750 Maxim a few weeks ago, it sat for a few months so it took a bit to get it started, but now the starter seems to be slipping. The bike will be turning over, and all of a sudden start slipping, or will take a few tries to get it to engage. I plan on cleaning the carbs, checking valve clearances, and checking compression to find out how far to go with the engine. Before I do anything I want to get the starter issue taken care of. I need a battery for it, so I temporarily used my lawn tractor battery which seems to turn the engine with no problem. Is it ok to be using this battery. I also didnt want the bike to sit all winter with the old oil, so I put 5W30 for the winter, I would not use this oil if I was riding it, but is it ok to start the bike with this oil, and could that be causing the starter clutch to slip?

 

Hmmm... 5W30=CAR OIL? YES it could be causing the starter clutch to slip, as a matter of fact that is probably the issue.

Plus it's not a good idea to saturate your clutch with the friction-modified stuff either.

 

It started doing it before I changed the oil, but I am not sure what the old stuff was. Is it alright for the bike to sit until spring with that oil, or should I change it now?

 

You might be lucky

http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... slips.html

 

I'd change it. Car oil will soak into the clutch disks and it may take a couple of changes to get it out of there. It will cause you starter clutch issues or make them worse. If you can get it runing well enought to ride a bit the good oil may fix that starter clutch. Had a XJ1100 do that

 

Whats a good oil to use? do you get yamalube, or would castrol 20w50 non synthetic be alright?

 

It sounds like the classic starter motor clutch issue. The starter 'clutch' is actually spring loaded rollers that work like a ratchet (works like a sprag clutch).

If it is gummed up from lack of use or poor/wrong oil, it may come good.
If the rollers or other components are worn or damaged, its a split the cases job to repair.

Mine has been skipping for the 2 years its been on the road, I keep waiting for it to go crunch and grind but it keeps hanging in.

 

Yamaha doesn't make oil; they don't even make plastic bottles; they make labels that say "Yamaha" to stick on oil they buy somewhere.

Castrol 4T motorcycle oil is fine; good ol' Castrol GTX for cars isn't any more.

Automobile oil standards now require friction modifiers; motorcycle oil doesn't. There are semi-synthetic motorcycle oils that work fine too; Castrol themselves make a whole line of them.

The key is that it needs to be motorcycle oil. 10W40 when it's cold out, or regularly below 41*F; 20W50 if it's above about 60*F.

 

Any update on this one?

 

I haven't had a chance to work on my bike lately, I plan to pull the carbs and change the oil on the weekend. After I clean The carbs I will mess around with the starter issues.

 

I'm betting there won't be any starter issue to mess with once you change the oil; see my response above.

And get the valves in spec while the carbs are off.

 

First, as others have stated, get the right oil in the crankcase. Second, when the battery doesn't have enough power under load, it will do as you describe. If your lawn tractor battery turns it over fine then get a new battery, you'll be fine.

 

SKI! How's the FZ coming?

(hijack apologies.)

 

bigfitz: I'm going to update my thread this weekend on the FZ.

 

The same thing happened to me when I tried some synthetic motorcycle oil in my XJ750J. The starter would slip, slip, then finally catch.
A change back to Castrol 4t and the starter worked fine.

Maz

 

I just changed the oil to castrol 10w40 and put new plugs, no more slipping