Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Hello everyone,

As you can see this is my first post on this massive forum, but I am not quite new to R/C. I've owned an HPI Micro RS4 and RS4 3 Evo for a year or two and I'm looking for help to get the latter running. I used to have a lot of time for my R/C habit, but when I turned 16 and went into 1:1 scale modifying :D the Evo got left behind. I've decided to resurrect it, which meant pulling apart and cleaning up the engine, putting in a HPI racing clutch, new fuel lines, and a fuel filter. Now, I've got the stock T-15 and rotostart going on. When I go to start the car, the rotostart turns with almost no resistance. The fuel was primed, the plug was good- I know the compression of the engine is fine because it requires moderate effort to turn it over by hand. I thought my glow plug igniter wasn't up to snuff, so I charged it all night but to no avail. Whereas I thought first that I wasn't getting any combustion, the fact that I don't even feel the resistance of the crank turning with the rotostart leads me to believe that the starter shaft isn't turning the crank.

The HPI website doesn't go into detail about setting the starter shaft up with the crank. In my unit, the starter shaft has a connecting-rod sized recess that gets a little deeper to a small edge that catches the whole thing. However, I have some play in the starter shaft back and forth (into and out of the engine, looking from opposite side of carb) and the starter shaft only really turns the whole piston from bottom dead center to about 2/5 of a full revolution. I guess my questions are: (1. is this normal? Is the starter shaft only supposed to turn the motor over for that short of a rotation? (2. did I reassemble something wrong? (3. am I neglecting some gross oversight? (4. do you guys need pictures to get the full effect?

Thanks in advance, folks. And by the way-- does anyone know what ever happened to hpiforums.com? That place used to be awesome, I can only remember one guy named Biggusditchus or something to that effect. I went back after a year hiatus and it was gone.

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Check your one way bearing. It may be on backwards thats why your rotostart turns so easily. If not, maybe your OWB might be shot already.

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Its the starting pin and spring. Its not touching the starter shaft properly. Had that exact same problem before on my old T-15. I thought it was the one way bearing at first but it wasnt

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Sounds like a good suspect. How did you fix it? Here is a picture, by the way. I have the uneasy feeling that the starting pin isn't even there.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...DSCN427225.jpg

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

You are correct, the starting pin is missing. This is what the starting pin looks like along with the spring that fits in behind the pin. [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXGEH0&P=Z]Pressure Pin[/link] I'd make sure that the pin didn't fall off somehow when you were putting the engine back together and its now rolling around in the engine somewhere.

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Umm he might have just taken the pin out when he was taking the fotos, but if he didnt take the pin out, i would start looking for it inside the engine before you try start it back up.

The usual problem here is the spring isnt pushing the pin hard enough to the starter shaft and it just slips through

You probably jsut need to order a new set of pin and spring. It should be cheap

RE: Rebuilt T-15 won't start.
 

Nope, I didn't take out the pin for the picture. That's an as-is shot. So the pin is indeed missing; I have shaken the engine about and heard no rattling, it turns over without any grinding or odd behavior, so it looks like I just lost it when I pulled the engine apart the first time. D'oh. Annoying thing is that I rebuilt it over 6 months ago, so that thing is most likely looooong gone. Definitely going to have to pay closer attention next time.

Thanks for the help guys! Looks nice and cheap on Tower so I'll pick up a new one.