starter clutch fix

So my starter motor started giving the typical starter clutch failure symptom, starter spinning but none of that torque being transferred to the engine. Took the starter out, stripped it down and started examining the starter clutch. The gear could just turn either way quite easily, so obviously the issue. Not wanting to buy a new part ( the Rand dollar exchange is a bit crazy at this point, great if you want to come to South Africa for holiday, but not so great if you want to import parts for your bike ) I started fiddling. Eventually resorted to gently tapping it with a hammer repeatedly with the hope that something might have gotten stuck and would work itself loose. This actually worked!! Put the starter back together, put it back in the bike and turned the key. It worked, but only for two sets of turns. Took it out again, stripped it down, sprayed it with Loctite penetrating grease and worked it in all directions for about 30 minutes. Put it back in and it seems to be holding. Only done about 15 turn sets, but looking good.

Does anyone know what the insides of the starter clutch looks like? Anyone got experience with repairing them? All the stuff that I found everyone just says replace. Would appreciate some drawings if anyone has got.

I've got known good starters for less than you can rebuild yours. So do some others. PM me
Jeff
Mechanic & HD employee

Other possibilities are loose connections

Jeff, currently my starter works after a bit of fiddling with the starter clutch ( although we'll have to wait and see for how long ). If it fails, I'll definitely give you a shout.

What I'm interested in is how does the starter clutch look inside? The google machine seems to be failing me in locating any drawings or information. If the starter clutch fails again, I'll open it up to see, but until then, I'm going to leave it in one piece.

Go to buellmods.com and download a service manual. There's an entire section devoted to trouble shooting and repairing the starter motor. At least that's the case for my 2007 service manual. I can't imagine other model year starters being much different.

So my little fix survived for another 10 goes but then gave up the ghost. Time to either get a new starter clutch or a whole new starter motor :upset: