2006 SMR450 refuses to start

So the bike won't e-start and it doesn't have a kicker. I'm not getting any clicking noises when trying to start it.

On Saturday the bike fired right up after two months of sitting (covered and dry and properly stored for long term use) - no issues starting up. I washed it and then parked it for two days; now today it won't start. Put the battery tender on it and got it charged to "green" and still no start. No clicks, nothing to indicate battery issues as far as I know.

So I push started it and went for a two hour ride; no issues aside from the lack of electrical start. Decided to trace all the connections and everything looks fine - fuses are good, all connections are on and not loose. I sprayed electrical contact cleaner on the battery connections and used a compressed air can to flush out the plastic connectors on the wire harness. Then I removed the secondary hidden kill switch (bike doesn't have a key to start with so a kill switch is sort of security by obscurity) and spliced the wires together for that to take it out of the equation... but still no e-start.

I have a Extech EX330 multi-meter and tested the battery: 13.24V and 4.23 amps. The horn works even with the stock handlebar mounted kill switch in the off position. The starter doesn't even try to turn over. Jetting is spot on perfect and usually the bike runs with absolute perfection.

I have a new wire harness that I am contemplating for the next part of troubleshooting.

What next? Ditch the old harness or check... something else? Bike also has a one year old Baja Designs regulator on it and a rewound stator to run race lights but the lights are off of the bike at the moment. The regulator and stator seem to work (I assume) fine since the bike runs once it's push started - otherwise it wouldn't spark (as far as I know). I'm not an electrical systems guy... not sure what else to do here but need to ride!

Any ideas?

Clutch interlock?
Tip over sensor?

Possible - but the bike hasn't been laid down for over two years... but that's the same thing that happened to my 08 TE250 and it refused to start for 10 minutes in a race and then out of the blue it just decided to start again. I'm not sure how to correct the tip sensor - how does one go about it?

The clutch lever only has the hydraulic cable, no other inputs aside from the wires that connect down near the shifter; I can check it for tightness and clean the sensor itself I guess - anything else that should be looked at on that part?

Coffee - you always have the best ideas. I did in fact spray the front end of the bike and the wiring in back of the number plate when I cleaned it the other day. Today I took all of that area apart so I'll check the kill switch connectors with the DVM. Do you happen to know the expected range of volts that I should be seeing when I toggle the kill switch? Obviously X to Zero would indicate "something" but like I said, I'm not super experienced with the electrical system on Huskies - computers, sure, but not motos. Time to learn more about that I suppose

Thanks for those diagrams -- one question: where is the clutch microswitch located? Is that the round plug that's above the shift lever on the left-hand side of the case? Is there an image available that shows the electrical aspects On The Bike instead of in a flat chart format?

I'll take some pics in a bit - I have all of the electrics exposed right now so identifying wires and connectors will be pretty easy once I know what to look for. I'm going to swap batteries today just to rule that possibility out as well.

Clutch microswitch should be on the clutch lever/perch

Items 26, 27 and 17 are what I would focus on if your starter is not even making any attempt at running when you press the start switch.

From looking at the schematic posted above I would think that the starter should even operate if the run/stop switch is in the stop position.

It is possible that the contacts inside the handlebar switch housing (26) for the starter button are corroded and therefore not making contact to flip the starter relay (17) or the contacts on the clutch safety switch could be not functioning either.

The fact that you say that the clutch lever has nothing but the hydraulic line is a curious thing. Odds are the microswitch is missing.

Joel

(disregard the several edits here... I'm pasting something I just wrote at the link below and forgot to edit some content)

I have another thread going on Supermoto Junkie here: http://www.supermotojunkie.com/show...ission-is-not-happy-today-what-could-be-wrong -- so between all of us I think this will get solved soon.

The secondary kill switch was put in-between the following connection where you can see the black wire near my hand that's twisted together temporarily. It worked fine for a full year and probably will work fine if I reinstall it - but I took it out to get rid of that being a potential issue.



Here's the clutch lever showing a lack of sensor - IIRC I'm pretty sure I removed it and spliced them when I was screwing around with the Midwest Mountain Engineering lever that caused a bunch of hassles - so I put the original lever back on and didn't bother putting the sensor back in, again that has been working fine for well over two years now so...


But here's where it gets interesting and I think we can identify the culprit; so I'm taking pics of the wiring and I had to pull the spliced red wire through the narrow area between the frame and radiator, and in doing so the black wire that's hand-spliced/twisted together and has bare wire expose touched the water pump metal and the bike fired up immediately. So there's some kind of grounding issue or something like that going on.


Now if I try the starter button it still doesn't work - but if I touch the black exposed wire to any metal surface it will engage the starter and the bike runs like normal.

The question now is "what needs to be done to get this pile back to standard operating state?" :hmmm:

Apparently my DVM has an audible sensor so I just need to figure out how to use that feature. Never had to deal with that before. http://www.extech.com/instruments/product.asp?catid=48&prodid=277

Thanks for the advice so far - this is much better than just replacing the whole harness and hoping it works.

If you go to the link you posted about your meter, open the english (or desired manual) and then go to page 10 it explains how to get the continuity setting so you can hear the beeping.

I'm betting that if you trace that black wire that if you touch it to ground turns the starter over that it will go to the green with an orange stripe that connects to the starter relay under the seat. When you ground the black wire it mimics what the starter button would be doing if things were correct.

To jumper out the clutch switch you likely jumped the two red wires that typically go to the micro switch out. You could also do the same thing by following the red wires back to the plug and jumping the G/O and the B/W wires to each other.

If you get your meter set up for continuity and put one lead on ground and the other on the B/W wire coming from the starter button to the clutch switch wiring you should hear the beep when you depress the starter button. If this is true than you can move the lead from the B/W wire over to the G/O wire and repeat the test (this will help rule out the jumpering of the clutch switch wiring). Keep moving further down the path the the starter relay until you no longer get continuity to ground when you press the starter button. Your problem will lie somewhere between the last two test points. If in the first step you do not hear a beep than your starter switch is the culprit and it is not passing ground into the rest of the circuit to flip the starter relay.

Good luck

Joel

If the blue scotch lock connector in your photo is what is jumpering the clutch switch wiring than there is a good chance of it having corroded. If you check continuity through that connection you may find that it is not passing the ground signal through.

Ok... so I took the handlebar mounted starter/kill switch entirely apart. If I hold the sides of the kill switch section together with my hand and then lightly push the kill switch down (when it's in the up or ON position) about .25mm and engage the start button it fires up. If I don't hold it together or push the button down just a bit -- no good. So the stock kill switch is the not engaging properly in the ON position.

Since it takes about two weeks to get parts delivered down here I'm contemplating the idea of going to the local shop and buying a dumb kill switch and a dumb start button and replacing the stock one with those two. By dumb I mean simple "on or off" toggle style that most non-plated MX bikes have for start and kill.

Thoughts?

Maybe there's something I can do with the stock switch to get it back to regular?

Good point - I need to replace or at least check every single connector and find some kind of anti-corrosive spray or paste to put on various parts of the electrical system on the whole. The weather here corrodes things in days where it would take months in other locales. For example I bought a beach cruiser last year brand new and after six months the steel spokes were rusted so much that it's unsafe to ride.

Anyway, I put that particular blue connector on yesterday as a stop-gap, but have since removed that section of the wiring since it was a redundant loop. Since it's not going to the clutch anymore it was just hanging out waiting to get tangled with other wires. So now that section of wire is gone and the blue connector is out of the picture.

Not a bad idea for routing to new buttons, you can refurbish the OEM start button, but it's a bitch to get apart and then back together.

Here's the inside of the kill switch



edit: the red alligator clip is just holding all of it together for the pic, it's not attached to any wires or connections.

Is that plastic melted? Or is that some type of lubrication in the switch?

Either way, maybe if you cleaned up the contacts and cleared things out inside the switch it would go back to functioning correctly.

it's grease of some kind. I'll clean it off after lunch and see if that makes a difference.