Rat Bastard's Starter
Shit man, I pulled the starter off because even with the truck battery it seemed to be hit or miss getting it to turn. Sometimes it would catch and sometimes not(who's big idea was it to take off kickstarters?). My initial thinking was the motorcycle battery was to low on charge, although it would turn over good once it caught, but to much cranking and the battery was low again.
So I pulled the starte off, mine is the Hitachi AMF starter in the manual it says, fear, the teeth on the pinion gear are chewed up so engaging was not up to snuff and I hesitated to look inside the engine case at the teeth there. Grabbed a small flashlight and peered inside, they look good so far and no damage apparent.
Back to looking at the starter I figured I could get a new pinion gear for it. Guess what? Looks like the whole armature has to be replaced as the pinion gear seems to be permanately attached to the shaft. Blimey rotten my luck.
Looking to the markings & numbers on the starter they are as follows: Hitachi Starter 31570-73, 12VO. 8HP/S108-41 and I wonder from the numbers (31570-73) if this is for a 1970 to 1973 engine. That might explain the meshing problem as I also discovered when removing the starter that the gear end had a bunch of some type of form a gasket on it perhaps to shim it out. What duh fuck!!
Can I get just the jackshaft and pinion gear?
So more cash outlay has to come forth before I ride or find something else wrong. This bike probably should have a complete tear down and rebuild but I just can't afford to do that right now. Help, I just want to stinking ride.
4 comments:
As near as I can tell the 31570-73 fits 1974 – 76. What year is yours? I would use caution jump-starting with a auto. That may be too much amperage and cause battery / starter damage. I would prefer charging at 2 amps so I don’t have to buy new parts. Any intake leaks?
Mine is a 1975 Willy. The starter was already having engaging problems and slow to turn then fast. Most the time it acted like it was hitting a bad spot and all I got was click then it would turn some and stop. Thats why I tried the truck battery to the cable at the starter but then I did attach to battery and thats when she fired up. But your probably right the ccas might be to much to do very often. I have the battery out and in my shop back on the charger/tender until I get the starte either fixed of replaced. She sounded mighty good though with the new carb and I think with starter fixed it'll fire up quicker.
The clicking sounds like a set of contact points. Could be low voltage, pitted, burnt. Any chance we could get a picture of the commutator? One looking down from the end so you can see all the segments, and one of what you would consider the worst scratch on it?
I can try but my sons camera program in computer keeps having fits. But I'll try to get a couple and email them. The pinion gear is pretty ragged though. Looks like meshing issues there.
Post a Comment