Four brush starter ground wire mod

[Venturous Randy]

I did the ground wire mod on an 86 starter that I had after my original was dragging a little. It seemed to really help the starter and it cranks over good.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up an 09 RSV starter and as I understand it, it should be a 4 brush starter. It came off a bike with 40K miles and looks very clean. I was the only bidder on ebay and got it for $29.95 plus about $13 shipping from Pinwall.

I am getting ready to remove the exhaust collector on the bike and replace it with one that I cut open and repaired that rattled before. I was thinking about putting the 09 starter on the bike since I was going to have the exhaust headers off on the front. My question is; does the newer 4 brush starter also need the ground wire mod or should it be ok the way it is?

RandyA

[Yammer Dan]

I would think better ground on these things would always be an improvement and a lot easier to do now than later???

[rstacy]

I am not one to disagree with Dan. He has more motorcycles at one time than I have had in my life!

I can tell you that I did not mod my 4 brush starter and it works great.

You also do not read anything about the 4 brush starter failing.

[Trader]

In another thread (do a search for "4 brush starter") Dingy suggested there would be very little room to do the ground mod on a 4 brush....from what I've read everybody says it is not needed.

 

just my uneducated

[skydoc_17]

Hey Randy,

There is no need to ground the brush plate on the 4 brush starter. Yamaha finally figured this one out! Slap her in, and go for a ride!

Earl

[dingy]

This is going to come as a shock, but I am going to disagree and say it probably should be done.

 

I am not getting a royalty payment on number of this mod done, so this is a slightly unbiased opinion. I have done the mod to my 2 brush & my 4 brush starter.

 

Both of them suffer from the same 'floating' brush plate design flaw. It is somewhat better in the 4 brush, but still not a hard wired path to ground. The brush plate still grounds from a result of the bell end being clamped to the main body with the brush plate sandwiched in between.

 

Mod is harder to do to the 4 brush, since a wire (braided wire would be good) needs to be soldered (silver preferably) to one of the brush brackets.

 

Its a cheap, and fairly easy mod if starter is not on bike.

 

1st pic shows 4 brush, 2nd is 2 brush plates.

 

Gary

[Midicat]

Way back when, I did the four brush starter mod on my '85. Completely cured the "I don't wanna start" syndrome in the bike. Never a problem since. Just sayin'.

 

Thomas

[twigg]

I would think that Gary and everyone else is right.

 

It's probably not necessary to mod the four brush starter, but you have it off the bike, so why not because it sure won't hurt it.

 

However, it is important that the starter can get the current it needs, so upgrading the power and ground wires to 4 gauge is a no-brainer.

[greg_in_london]

Now just because I've done this doesn't mean it's a good idea....

 

I also have an old XJ550 which I've recently put back on the road. That has a four brush starter motor, but the body is steel, rather than aluminium. I also changed the brushes at the same time, so can't give a direct comparison, but with what I'd heard about the Venture starters I wondered if the floating brush plate gave the best possible connection (as it's over 30 years old...) so I carefully welded the plate to the housing where one of the indents is and then filed it flat so the cap fitted back on.

 

It certainly seems to provide a good earth, but then I had three starter motors in bits so could afford to make a mistake..

[Yammer Dan]

Now just because I've done this doesn't mean it's a good idea....

 

I also have an old XJ550 which I've recently put back on the road. That has a four brush starter motor, but the body is steel, rather than aluminium. I also changed the brushes at the same time, so can't give a direct comparison, but with what I'd heard about the Venture starters I wondered if the floating brush plate gave the best possible connection (as it's over 30 years old...) so I carefully welded the plate to the housing where one of the indents is and then filed it flat so the cap fitted back on.

 

It certainly seems to provide a good earth, but then I had three starter motors in bits so could afford to make a mistake..

 

 

Sure sounds good don't it!!

[greg_in_london]

It works