Posted by William Boylan on November 05, 2001 at 03:00:09:
In Reply to: newbie posted by bryan on November 02, 2001 at 16:53:27:
Bryan: The seat has to be removed before you can get at the hardware to remove the tank. The kick stand must be up and the clutch depressed before the starter will operate. Check the switch at the kick stand and be sure it is ok.
Also... this happened to me. I "Gunked" and thourly washed my bike, an 87, including some pretty hard water hose work. I got something wet in the process that wasn't suposed to get wet. The bike began acting just like you describe. Hit the starter switch and just a loud "CLICK" and that's all. I blew the hell out of the bike with compressed air and also with a leaf blower to no avail. I found that if I just held the starter button down the starter would eventually take off. The situation slowly got better until after about 3 weeks of daily starting, it finally returned to normal. That was about 2 months ago and I have not had a problem with it since.
In the starter sercuit there is at least one timer that interupts the power to the starter while the compression release is activated. It is located right under the left side cover. At the time of my problem I did not have that cover, it was lost before I aquired the bike. I suspect that that was the culprit. You might try jumper cables to see if the problem is the battery.