TOPIC:

Once my 83 kz550m gets up to operating temperature, if I shut it down and try to restart it immediately or shortly after, it cranks really really slow and won't start.  Like something is dragging or something.  It even has trouble popping the clutch to get it going. 
I have sufficient battery power but haven't done any in depth testing yet. I was curious if anyone has had something similar. Or if it's a common starter issue on bikes that points to a starter being junk. 
once it completely cools down it'll start perfectly fine

Not too sure if this is related, but on older domestic V-8, specially those Chevy's, heat soaked starter will crank very slow. I mean very slow. That was usually the solenoid was the corrupt. Heat soaked solenoid needed more than usual amps to get it going. It was more so if you had headers on it. Those thing just fried the started/solenoid. We used to put heat shield, wrapped headers with insulating tape, put/installed remote solenoid, yada yada yada................

Anyway, you have a heat soak something that is creating too much resistance. Check your connector at starter or starter cable going to the starter?

I'm still resto-modding my KZ, so I could be wrong. Forgot how these things were wired.

Hucksawyer wrote:

Once my 83 kz550m gets up to operating temperature, if I shut it down and try to restart it immediately or shortly after, it cranks really really slow and won't start.  Like something is dragging or something.  It even has trouble popping the clutch to get it going. 
I have sufficient battery power but haven't done any in depth testing yet. I was curious if anyone has had something similar. Or if it's a common starter issue on bikes that points to a starter being junk. 
once it completely cools down it'll start perfectly fine

When you say it even has trouble popping the clutch - do you mean starting the engine this way. If so then before you pile into the electrics I would  suggest getting it hot, remove the spark plugs and turn it over by hand. If it is hard to turn then the engine is "nipping up" when hot. This could be a multitude of things (over tight cam chain, cam bearings failing, crank bearing issue etc) If the engine is tightening when hot you will need to dig deeper

If the starter motor is forty years old and has never been serviced the grease in the planetary gearbox will be dried out and not lubricating anything. The heat from running will pretty much seize the planetary gears.
Easy job to strip the starter motor and clean out the crud and re pack with fresh. 
When reassembling don't over tighten the long case screws or it'll show the same symptoms. 

Agree but if he is struggling to bump start when hot may be something else ??

Wookie58 wrote:

Agree but if he is struggling to bump start when hot may be something else ??

"popping the clutch reference".
I've never tried to bump start anything bigger than a 250 2 stroke and even then not in the last 30 odd years.  Im sure it doesn't get any easier with age and bigger heavier bikes. I imagine it would be a difficult task to do single handed or without the aid of a long downhill stretch or a couple of willing pushers to gain enough speed.
Without more info I kinda think that part may be a bit of a mis direction. 

If fuel and ignition systems are up to snuff, bump starting is not difficult even on a liter bike.

So I did some carb tuning and rode it last night and I killed it on an incline because of my new throttle response im thinking.  I did get it bump started, easier than previously attempted,  so I think that piece of information might be a red herring and not valid info.  I tried starting it tonight and it still not start unless I screw around with the idle adjustment knob, then won't idle unless in full choke. I'm gonna say it's probably the starter, being so old and tired.

that being said, I obviously messed up the carb syncing and need to completely redo that

Thank you for all your responses.  I'm relatively new to the motorcycle world and appreciate this forum

Bad starter brushes can cause that problem. 
Steve
 

do you have a volt meter?

Hucksawyer wrote:

I tried starting it tonight and it still not start unless I screw around with the idle adjustment knob, then won't idle unless in full choke. 
 

Once you get the starter turning properly, this will need to be more carefully explained and addressed. These old carburetors are not particularly complicated, but they do need to be spotlessly clean inside. Every single little passageway must be perfectly clean. Then the adjustments must be made in the proper order. Doing them out of order will lead to much frustration. Sort out the starter first, then circle back to this.

F64 wrote:

do you have a volt meter?

yes I do.  I've been checking voltage drop in easily accessible locations. But now since it doesn't even want to run,  I can't get it hot to check when it's up to temp