Having failed, for now to get my bike (CB450K1) running, - it's a long story involving potentially bent valves and potentially loose cam chain ... – I was looking to see what I could sort out in the meantime. My starter motor hadn't worked from the day I acquired the bike so I decided to try to sort it out.
I stripped it, cleaned it, and checked it out for resistances, shorts etc. Everything, including the bearings and bushes, seemed OK. For some reason, this time - I've rebuilt a couple before – I struggled a bit putting it back together when trying to align the casing marks and get the planetary gears in the right position, but eventually I succeeded.
The motor turned freely, so I thought I was done. Wrong!
I attached it to an old car battery and it turned, but slowly. Even thought the battery was registering 12.8V, it though maybe it just wasn't strong enough, so I next attached it to my Landrover battery. If it can start my Landy, I thought, it should turn this over easily.
Well, again it turned, but still not anywhere near the speed I expected. I tried again and this time it didn't turn at all.
Any thoughts on what could be the cause of this strange behaviour?