I've never owned or ridden a Tenere before this one that I recently rebuilt. When starting it, after it's been standing a couple of days, It takes about a minute of cranking the starter, and a load of whiteish smoke comes out of the exhaust for a while. When the engines warm, I don't have this problem. I've just looked at the battery and one of the cells is low on water, which was topped up about 300 miles ago. Is this normal for these bikes? And what is the drill with starting, choke/no choke, throttle/no throttle? Is my battery crap? Or could that be a symptom of another problem. Other than that the bike runs well.
Help please
Dave O

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Remember what Yoda said\", there is no try, either do or not do\".

Hi Dave,

Neither the starting problem nor the battery electrolyte level dropping is normal.

Once my 3AJ was sorted it started reliably on the button after one or two seconds, as does my girlfriends 3TB.

On our bikes to start from cold requires full choke and no throttle, hot start in no choke and just a hint of throttle.

If you only have starting problems when the engine is cold, and it starts within a second or 2 when hot I would check that the carb's cold start plunger is moving correctly when you pull the choke knob out. I would probably remove it anyway and blow through the passages with aerosol carb cleaner.

You say that you have recently rebuilt the motor. Did you replace the inlet stubs between the cylinder head and carbs ? These often come apart between their rubber and aluminium parts, causing air leaks which cause starting problems.

Have you checked your valve clearances, they quickly bed down on a rebuilt motor and may be part of the problem. It might even be worth doing a compression test (after valve clearances have been set and when the engine is hot,) to verify that the rings and valves are sealing correctly, if not that too would cause poor starting

Other problems that I had included an air leak in the pipe connecting the inlet stub to the fuel pump, plugs in the air box coming apart, and an aftermarket alternator/CDI rotor not supplying the CDI unit with enough power to produce a good spark.

If the white smoke that you mentioned isn't just condensation as the exhaust system warms up, then that is something to be concerned about. Could be just that the tickover mixture screw is set too weak, which wouldn't help hot starting.

If the starting problem only occurs after the bike has stood for a few days, it might be worth trying draining the carb’s float bowl before starting and letting it re-fill from the tank. Fuel goes off much quicker than it used to. If the fuel in the tank is from before the rebuild, replace it!

If the battery will turn the engine over for a minute I wouldn’t have thought it too bad, but something’s not right there either if the level keeps dropping. However, the battery isn’t used to produce the sparks, it’s CDI.

Also, have you tried changing the spark plug, plug cap or somehow determined if you have a good spark?

Hope this helps, good luck with sorting it our

Mark