HELP! Why does this sh** always happen when you're selling a bike...to a friend haha. Decided to pass my 71' off to a friend and invest the money into my 70 and the DT400. I told him I'd rebuild the top end before I passed it on and in doing that I went to start the bike (pre-top end) and the starter just clicked once. I thought battery, charged it FULLY. Same thing. Checked wiring, nothing obvious. Cleaned up connections, grounds, all that. 1 click. Pulled the starter solenoid off my 70 that I know is good, same thing. What am I missing or overlooking?

Brushes? Loose wire causing poor connection?

Well, I don't think compression was the issue here. I redid the top end and was surprised to find the piston and rings looked great, same for cylinder wall. I did the swap anyways and there is a noticeable difference. The electric work started working better after so I'm guessing that points to brushes which is new territory for me, once I know what to do for cleaning I'll do that and might as well check points while I'm there. I went through the wiring pretty intensely so unless it's a verrrrry sneaky wire I think it's brushes. Hoping they aren't shot or not serviceable as the bike is technically sold. Idle screw is now just shy of all the way in too and the bike wants to dial at idle so I guess I have unexpected carb work to do too. Bike does start better, used to die after choke fire and then be a turd to start of choke. Now stays running after choke fire and continues to run then just needs some nursing/warm up at idle.

Battery has to have a real good charge. Mine does best above 12.35. Replacing battery wires with fresh and cleaning neg screw hole and threads might help. Simple system but has to be clean. Good luck!

I need some more help with the brushes topic and charging system. I think the hard starting especially with electric starter is related and the bike is draining the battery somehow. I thought for sure it was compression but like I said before, it'd fire immediately on choke then die, then be hard to start with choke off. It's better for sure with fresh top end. But the battery is draining. It had a full charge then just randomly died and battery was at 6.8v. ?? Heeeeeelp...