Griso not starting...

[uncle]

(not an unusual topic)

Well,  my 2007 Griso 1100 decided not to start today.  Ran fine yesterday,  this morning I get a faint click - usually in the past I would get the louder click coming from the starter indicating is was time to clean the battery terminals and the ground.   

I did clean them all up and still the faint click coming from the relay.  Checking the fuses I had a blown 20A starter fuse,  no problem there is a spare - I pop it in and try starting again - 'click' fuse blown - no start.

Question - where to look?  just a bad battery (read 12.41 volts - not load tested) -  or could it be a bad connection to the starter itself (pull starter and clean all connections) - or something I am overlooking....

Any ideas?

I'm headed back out to the shop to ponder....  (and go get a box of fuses)...

Rich

[redrider]

You may be able to disassemble the starter, clean and lube but my experience has been either a new one or rebuild the old one. I first learned this on the Mille years ago. The contacts in the solenoid were burnt. I cleaned them along with the rest of the starter but the repair was short lived. Six months later I bought a Valeo. The V11 had a habit of popping the fuse until I swapped out the Valeo from Millicent.

[jlburgess]

I blew that fuse about 3 times when my battery was going bad.  I uprated it by 5 amps and it worked great until I got a new battery.

[Kiwi_Roy]

I blew that fuse about 3 times when my battery was going bad.  I uprated it by 5 amps and it worked great until I got a new battery.

I's possible the battery just doesn't have enough grunt to pull the solenoid in, charge it up and try again
Yes a 25 or even 30 Amp fuse might do it, the solenoid pulls 45 Amps if it doesn't engage
Make sure the main positive cable is well connected at both ends, scrape the battery terminals and apply Vaseline.

[uncle]

Yeah,  I'm thinking battery too...  it seem as though each time I hear of some 'mysterious' starter problem,  a new batter seems to fix it.  Mine is 4 years old but I usually have much better luck on batteries lasting.... 

[guzziownr]

My '09 started popping fuses and re-fuse-ing to start.  I put in a slightly higher rated fuse and the problem went away.

Mr. Blackcat only uses the expensive batteries in his bikes.  I know because there are three of his dead ones in my garage.

[Doppelgaenger]

I'd address the battery first and see what happens with that. I got the click-but-no-start when my battery went out, although I wasn't blowing fuses when that happened which seems a bit odd.

[uncle]

So,  I put my trickle charger on over night and this morning it starts fine...  One thing I did before starting was to put it in second gear and just pushed it enough to bump the cylinders to a different spot.  I doubt this had any impact but the again always hard to disprove something like that. 

My guess is that it probably is the battery on it's way out -  but the blowing fuses still has me scratching my head.

And yes, I will be getting some higher amp fuses to carry around....

[Kiwi_Roy]

As I said earlier the starter solenoid pulls 45 Amps until it completes the difficult task of pulling the gear into mesh. I suspect that under some battery conditions it doesn't have quite enough Voltage to create 45 Amps, lets say it's only 30 not enough to start the solenoid moving so it sits there for several seconds pulling 30 until the fuse goes pop.
This is why I suggested charging the battery.
I did a test on a Valeo starter simulating the failure to pull in, it blew the fuse in about 0.5 seconds.

BTW, this might also be cured by doing the Startus Interuptus fix, perhaps that's the real problem.

I sent you a PM

Update: It looks like Luigi may have done something to address Startus Interuptus on the 2006 Griso but would need to do a test to say for sure.

[Idontwantapickle]

So,  I put my trickle charger on over night and this morning it starts fine... 

My guess is that it probably is the battery on it's way out -  but the blowing fuses still has me scratching my head.

There ya go...battery. That's an easy fix!
Modifying the circuit by providing power directly to the relay to power the solenoid will help this issue a lot. It's been well documented here before.

But forget all that, buy a battery and go for a ride! 

Hunter

[Kiwi_Roy]

The fuse blowing is courtesy of Ohm's law. The lower the voltage the higher the current for the same load. 

I can't let that go, it's not quite that simple
Lower the Voltage and you lower the current, therefore the Watts (load) also drops.

There are two coils in the solenoid
one of 1.05 Ohms (12/1.05 = 11.42 Amps)
the other 0.25 Ohms (12/0.25 = 48 Amps)
Its the second one that causes the fuse to blow, it's normally only powered for about 0.1 seconds while the solenoid is moving from rest to where it closes the main contacts, then it draws zero Amps

[Idontwantapickle]

You are correct Roy, my bad.

[beetle]

For those scratching your heads, time is a factor in fuse ratings. As Roy says, the solenoid pulls more amps than the fuse rating when you first hit the starter. However, it's only for a few milliseconds. Fuses have thermal ratings as well. For say, 100mS, a 20 amp fuse might have a rating of 50 amps, for 150mS, it might be 25 amps. At 200mS, it blows. Those numbers are not actual data, just as an example.

[blackcat]

My '09 started popping fuses and re-fuse-ing to start.  I put in a slightly higher rated fuse and the problem went away.

Mr. Blackcat only uses the expensive batteries in his bikes.  I know because there are three of his dead ones in my garage.

They are not dead, they are just resting.

[rboe]

Because of the CB1100, the Griso tends to get ignored while I in town rides. There is a parasitic drain and after a couple three weeks I have learned to put on the big charger to properly top of the charge. I bought a new battery, but the old one is still good and I keep it charged. She just needed to be topped off.