Alton Starter Question

Hello

I hope that someone can help with this. Sorry, it's a bit long.

I have had the electric starter installed for over 4 years now, and it has been faultless. However, a while back, on pressing the button, it seemed that something "blocked" the starter, but, on trying it again, it all worked perfectly, and continued to do so for several weeks, and I “forgot” about it. Then, the last time I used the bike, the same thing happened, it felt like something blocked the starter, but, again, retrying it, it worked normally, but this time I decided to investigate.

When trying to separate the double gear, it was clear that the dowels had partially broken up, but instead of protecting the starter, it had all jammed up, and was difficult to separate. When I bought the starter, spare dowels were provided, so I started to rebuild it, but on tightening the steady plate, it was trapping the double gear, and making rotation very difficult.



This is as far as I can push the double gear together, without the dowels fitted, and without using force. I think that originally it was more closed up (I had never needed to take it apart), which would have provided clearance. If it was originally more closed, I don’t know how that could have been achieved without using force. It seems that maybe the welds on the pin are preventing it from going together, although I am finding it difficult to measure accurately.



I am raising this directly with Alton, but obviously it is well out of guarantee.

In the meantime, can anyone advise on how far together the two parts of the double gear should fit? If the problem is, indeed, the welds, I could grind them down a little with a Dremel, although I am a bit concerned about breaking through the weld.

Thanks for any help that you can offer.

Ray

On the top part where it goes over the shaft and is pushed down are there witness marks on its ID where it has touched the welds.

Hi Ray,

I have the Alton installed and my assembled gear has witness marks that are perfectly flush (with or without the shear dowels installed).
I forget but there should be roughly 10 thou clearance between bolted up steady plate and the gear assembly.
It is good that you noticed the steady plate was binding up the gear assembly and have pulled it apart to sort it.

My gear has the welds like yours, but they they do not stop the two gear parts assembling so the witness marks are in the same plane.
Can you post photos of close ups of both sides of the two pieces? Something is wrong....

Dennis

I agree that a block sound could be kickback that halts the engine as you are cranking it. I found that it is very important to have
an ignition system that does not kick back as the protecting dowels will shear and you then have to pull it apart.
I use the Tri-Spark and, when timed properly, it is programmed to fire at about 8 degrees ATDC at rpm less than about 500 rpm.
Dennis

I have now spent more time on this, and the welds are not the problem. the two parts of the double gear would not properly go together because it was catching against the top of boss (adjacent to the welds). Looking closely at the boss, and the female hole into which it mounts (as shown below), the finish was not entirely smooth, maybe due to the rotation when the dowels started breaking up, so I very gently cleaned it up. Eventually, it all went together with a couple of light taps with a wooden mallet.





Upon mounting into the chain case, with the steady plate, I now have 12 thou clearance, and with the full installation completed, everything is free to revolve as it should. I have done several starts, hot and cold, and it is all working perfectly again.

I have a Boyer micro digital ignition system fitted, which has, I believe, very similar advance characteristics to the TriSpark, but whether it actually goes ATDC at cranking speed, I do not know. My bike is normally an immediate starter, provided the carburettors are tickled appropriately, and the choke is used in cold weather.

Many thanks to everyone who responded.

Ray

You could see your Boyer advance curve ...

That is the standard Boyer MK3/4 curve, the micro digital and the digital are different and not on that graph. On my digital Boyers there is a idle stabilisation feature so the curve advances at low revs as per the Trispark. Makes tuning the idle mix by ear very odd as it fights the changes you make when the mixture is changed, that's why I use the colortune instead.

Yes , I had forgotten the complete list one !

I have had some feedback from Alton regarding the dowels, and they supplied the attached notice, which contains recommendations on the number of dowels and the shore rating. I'm planning do get some new dowels and follow their recommendation.

I started with three shear dowels before and increased to 4. The best solution to stop the dowels shearing is to have an electronic ignition like my TriSpark that has spark retard at under 500 rpm so timing then is then ATDC. I learnt the hard way.
I once let the clutch out in neutral at a stop light. But it was still in gear and the engine stalled with a funny sound.
Sure enough, the dowels sheared. Since I installed the TriSpark, no problems.
Dennis