06 fe450 won't start off E-Start

fedge said:

I have went through 33 pages of Mechanical post and have come up with valve adjustment to try and maybe decompression? Do not understand how the decomp has anything to do with the fact that the bike will not start hot or cold off the E- Start? I never use the manual decomp when starting never needed too. Or the hot start.
The starter spins the engine fine.The bike will start off the kick every time hot or cold.I will adjust the valves and try a new plug. Any input would sure help.I am waiting for a Orangeberg weep hole fix and will do the valve adjustment at the same time. And have replaced the battery also.And was fully charged. Thanks

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Tell us about the carb settings my friend. Taking a shot in the dark, I'd say it's lean.

What needle and clip settng?
What pilot jet?
What pilot and main air jets?
Where do you have the fms set?

Have you tried using the choke when it's warm to start on the e start?

fedge said:

I have went through 33 pages of Mechanical post and have come up with valve adjustment to try and maybe decompression? Do not understand how the decomp has anything to do with the fact that the bike will not start hot or cold off the E- Start? I never use the manual decomp when starting never needed too. Or the hot start.
The starter spins the engine fine.The bike will start off the kick every time hot or cold.I will adjust the valves and try a new plug. Any input would sure help.I am waiting for a Orangeberg weep hole fix and will do the valve adjustment at the same time. And have replaced the battery also.And was fully charged. Thanks

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Hi fedge, try this remove plug cap leave the plug in fit a new plug into plug cap place on head turn over with the lecky to see if it will spark if it does suspect plug if not, not cranking fast enough.

Regards

Sparks.

RE: Re: 06 fe450 won

must be one o' those honda f4i starters :wink:

RE: Re: 06 fe450 won

Assuming the valves are set correctly so the auto decomp will work, how is the cranking speed? Fairly fast? The Estart won't spin the motor as fast as you can kick it. As I recall you've had the bike for a few months and it started fine in the cool weather. If it's having trouble now that it's warm out, it could be jetting. Usually in this case it will start without the choke by doing a throttle twist to let the pump squirt in some fuel.

The other failure than can cause trouble is the pickup coil for the ignition. It is the little black square under the flywheel cover (bottom left corner when the cover is off). When it's getting weak, estart become iffy. The extra speed from kick starting will make it work. This is an easy repair and the part is about sixty dollars I think. The only way to verify the problem is to swap the part. I don't know if a KTM unit is identical.

There are others things that can be wrong too. Hard to give an accurate answer without seeing the bike. Is every other aspect of it's operation OK?

Try e-starting it with the hot start lever on. If it starts that might easliy confirm an overly rich condition.

fedge said:

Hey...I tried Sparks suggesting and did the plug thing still no start off the E-start

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Are you stating that with a plug, in the cap, leaning/touching the cylinder head you are not getting any spark whatsoever?

fedge

the idea is that you lay the plug on the cylinder head so you can see the earth electrode touching the head. then turn the leccy boot. you should see a bluse spark.

obviously you aren't trying to start the bike. just view a spark.

regards

Taffy

fedge said:

Just tried it and when it come to the compression the starter spins off even with the manual decompression pulled.

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I apologize for my lack of understanding Canadian So do you mean that when the piston starts up on the compression stroke the starter disengages and just spins not moving the piston up any further?

fedge said:

Just tried it and when it come to the compression the starter spins off even with the manual decompression pulled.Is it possible the bearing on the starter is gone for s@#t too? Not too frustrating?!!!

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Does this happen cold and hot? And is this what is happening all the time when you say it won't start on the estart??

Please paint us a more complete picture as to exactly what is going on. Because in your first post you said the starter spins the engine fine. Tell us some more about the bike, how many hours does it have on it, is it stock, etc....

My 04 550 will not start cold on the button and that doesn't matter to me anyway cause I never want to start my bike that way, I always use the kicker when cold. But, when it's hot it starts on the button no problem. However, when it is cold, it will do as you described above, it will turn the motor till it comes to compression and then the torque limiter let's loose. So to me, this sounds like the torque limiter is going out.

And since you have said before that the bike starts fine on the kicker, this lends me to believe one of two things. A-your torque limiter is going out. B-your carb settings are not quite right and when you kick the bike over you spin it a lot faster than the elecy does causing a stronger intake impulse, thereby sucking more fuel into the motor.

Now then, since you said that you saw a good spark when you put a new plug in the cap and turned the bike over with the plug still in it with the electric starter, which is what Sparks had suggested so that you could verify that you are getting good spark when it comes up on compression, and you got a good spark. However, I'm a bit confused because now you say "Just tried it and when it come to the compression the starter spins off even with the manual decompression pulled" so I'm wondering about how you got the good spark when using the electric start with the plug still in???

Since you got a good spark with the Sparks test, I'm leaning towards a carb problem, it could be that you have your idle set too high which reduces the intake impulse or vacuum through the venturi, and the electric start cannot spin the motor fast enough to create a strong enough intake impulse. This is a classic hard start symptom that non electric start 4T riders have, they try to keep their bike from stalling by keeping the idle high, and when it does stall, they have problems because the idle is set too high. This is experience talking here.

The other thing that my bike does that sonds like yours, is that when the exhaust valves get too loose, the auto decomp lobe cannot lift the valves far enough to allow good elecy starting because of the increased compression, and the torque limiter lets go. Hard starting is also a symptom of too tight of valve clearance as well.

You might also check where the fms is set, a good starting point is 1 & 3/4 turns out.

Dale

You need to be certain the valve adjustment is correct. Did you remove the spark plug and feel for compression to verify it was on the compression stroke? Then put a LONG tie wrap in the plug hole to watch it stop moving at TDC? Also did you remove the stop bolt plug to see that the flywheel slot was present so you are sure of TDC? (This last step is not essential, but is slightly more accurate than the tie wrap).

Your motor has had a lot of hours possibly so the 1/6 turn method would be of value when setting the clearances. The exhaust valves must be set right for the auto decomp to work. Once the valves are correct you can move on to jetting. If the carb float level and jetting is reasonable and your kickstarting is effortless, you can look at the starter situation. With a good battery (jump from a car if necessary) the estart should spin fine. If it's a bit sluggish your decomp lobe could be worn down. If it spins quickly, it should start. You can tweak the jetting a bit, but I would suspect the pickup coil may be on the way out. When I had a bad one, it would kickstart everytime, never start off the button cold, and only start off the button sometimes when hot.

The engine needs to be in good mechanical shape. I recommend performing a leakdown test to be sure.

Try setting the exhaust valves a little tighter than the .12 spec that is called for. I just ran into something similar today with an 05 450 and setting the valves at .10 seemed to work.

The auto decomp wasnt working at the recommended valve specs.

Scott is correct on this. The recommended decomp bump height is 1 mm (.039). Mine measured .63mm (.025). I can tell that it is just opening the valves enough for the starter to do it's job. Setting the valves tighter will result in better decomp action.
The real problem is the pocket depth in the camshaft. The pocket width is correct as there is only a tiny bit of play when the bump is retracted. Adding a bit of weld in the pocket is too tricky for my old eyes. The next time I have the motor apart, I'll weld the base of the bump to fill the pocket, then widen the pocket a bit to provide the necessary clearance.
I would assume the pickup coil is fine if you've got a big fat spark while cranking (another spark plug installed in cylinder head so you are testing real conditions).
Husaberg ownership almost guarantees you become a good mechanic.

fedge said:

I am going to lock the motor at TDC with bolt to crank shaft method.Take off the side cover and check the timing marks.The bike worked fine up untill I moved the timing So that is my first check.Credit to DaleEO for the hint on the bolt method and a good start point.If it turns out the timing is right the next step will be the valve train.I will keep you posted.Neil thanks and the eye sight does not get better it only seems a couple years ago I had no problems and bang your old :lol: Thank for the advice . fedge

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Locking the motor with the bolt is fine, but you still have to make sure you are on the correct TDC, which is the compression stroke. The cam lobes will be pointed down, and all four valves will be closed.

TDC with cam lobes down (compression stroke), sidecover off, stop bolt in place. The dots may not line up exactly, as the stop bolt slot is not dead on. If you line up the dots you should see the slot (looking in the stop bolt hole). Rock the crank a little bit to be sure you're looking at the slot. There may be a hole in the crank wheel, but that's not what you want. There are good pictures in the downloadable repair manual that can help.

Be aware that the kickstart shaft MUST be held down (pushed in toward the engine) when you remove or install the sidecover. It can move up and then you have to remove the clutch basket to reset it. There will be about a 2mm gap between the kickstart gear and the clutch basket when it is correct.

Neil_E. said:

Be aware that the kickstart shaft MUST be held down (pushed in toward the engine) when you remove or install the sidecover. It can move up and then you have to remove the clutch basket to reset it. There will be about a 2mm gap between the kickstart gear and the clutch basket when it is correct.

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I like to tap the kickstart shaft lightly with a plastic dead blow hammer when removing the sidecover. The tapping moves the side cover off very easily.