My "new" GS500 has Starwalt's Disease

[TANNER]

oh i wanted this bike, i e-mailed the guy and never received a reply... guess you beat me to it..   
good luck getting it up and going, nice looking scooter..

[alois71]

So I went with  dgyver's diagnosis  of Starwalts disease. I decided to  pull the starter.

I tell you what, working on bikes is fun and it really teaches you are sitting on. Confidence boost for sure.




I have not opened the starter yet, it is sitting next to me on the couch as I type this. When I shake it, to be frank, it sounds like  utter crap. Like there is  loose metal moving around Not like a metal can of nuts and bolts but still.....
I have a feeling my starter is going to look like starwart in this post..... I am tired (it is midnight) and I am on-call tommorow. (yes I am a doctor.. not a bike mechanic) I will post on saturday or sunday when I open up the starter.... but till then I am expecting something like what starwalt found in this post:

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=13774.msg117881#msg117881

[The Buddha]

Yea ... good job.
Cool.
Buddha.

[alois71]

So I finally got around to opening the starter.

Take a look.....






Stalwarts.... For those who don't know
Starwalt's Syndrome (Disease) is the destruction of the starter motor due to the seizing of the starter clutch on the crankshaft while happily motoring along at any speed.

When the clutch locks onto the crankshaft, it instantly engages the starter gear, idler and then starter motor. The poor starter motor gets spun up to some astonishing RPM that causes it to fly apart internally and then continue to chew itself up to the point of total lock down.

This is a very bad thing and almost a total write off for the starter motor.
Thus my avatar.

The cure is removing the LH cover, pulling the generator rotor/clutch/starter gear and fixing the issue.



Where do I go from here?
The starter clutch set- $28 most likely, $150 rotor most likely, new oil filter, 4 quarts of your favorite oil. Hope the rest are okay.

[The Buddha]

I guess buy a starter (there were 2-3 guys with them - try this guy - erbilabuc - he done good for me) and open up the left case and see what else is afoot. Starwalts can be because of a total disintegration of the magnet and starter clutch ... you definetly want to see that the starter clutch runs the right way. Starter clutch had to be bought new, so get on it, and by monday you'll be ordering the stuff.
Cool.
Buddha.

[beRto]

That starter looks fine to me 

[b_long_1]

beautiful.

[erbilabuc]

yeah I have a starter that you can have for free and it works. Just pay shipping through paypal which is about 13$ now (8$ 4 months ago.....). Hurry though because I leave for Iraq on Wednesday.

[starwalt]

You need to jump on that starter from erbilabuc. If not I have a couple also and will sell it for what I have in it.

I still think this happens because of no oil path to the starter clutch and the spacer. The clutch can be cleaned/filed up, but the spacer/shim must be replaced. If you can get an entire rotor/clutch assembly that is a faster fix.



I had to drill out the bolts that hold the clutch onto my rotor and then dig deeper to find the problem.



And the shim/spacer plate damage:


You can see where the clutch chewed into it. I plan to replace/test the oil pump and oil path to this section to make sure there is flow prior to really running this bike. I should get the big-stick whipping because I bought another GS (with carb problems) and have not finished this one!   (Life, work, distractions, etc.  It is an old story.  )

[erbilabuc]

i shipped the starter out this morning. Let me know how it goes.

[alois71]

Quick Note:

I have a starter in transit. I ordered a complete starter clutch on-line and I have a starter clutch slide hammer in transit.
Here are the latest pics after I pulled the LC cover.

Only "pathology" I found was the starter idle gear had a few teeth missing. It is going t have to be replaced. Anyone have an extra gear?






The good news is my stator looks pretty good. I will test it  later though.



Cheers

.Alois 

[The Buddha]

Oh nice catch young padwan.
And, you need a left case gasket too ...
Sorry, dont have gear ...
Cool.
Buddha.

[starwalt]

The Starwalt Rotor Tool is on the way to you at the speed of UPS. Next Wed. (3rd) is the ETA.

Good catch on the idler gear.

[The Buddha]

Why are you pulling the rotor though ?
That starter idler gear and starter are needed, but I didn't see damage on the crank gear.
You suspect a locked starter clutch is it not spinning in one direction - clockwise as you are standing on the left of the bike, it should roll free, anti clockwise, it should try to take the motor with it and hence not turn. Crank gear, not idler gear.
Cool.
Buddha.

[alois71]

Well, I thought i would at least inspect the starter clutch. I am trying to figure out why the heck it locked up and tyring to prevent it from locking up again. In fact, I am thinking about changing the oil pump too. It is true the starter clutch spins in both directions- not easy though. I guess I am now unsure what I should replace apart from the obvious broken pieces? I am confident if I replace the starter and idle ger the bike would start up but the word is prevention and identification. What were you thinking? Advise would be greatly needed.
.Alois

[The Buddha]

Oil pump ... why no one that I know of has replaced that.
Oh, you have a bigger job on hand ... the busted up teeth ... where they go ? yea gotta find them.
The starter clutch could use a clean and replace (I think take it apart and its gotta be replaced. But if it spins fine in 1 direction but takes the motor in the other direction, yea its ok.
Why did it break the teeth ? manufacturing defect, hydrolock ... bad luck ... I dont see a locked starter clutch eating teeth on the idler though. Maybe it will. The reason I dont suspect that is ... the starter has the engine as load, but the engine starts running and a locked starter cluctch now takes the starter with it ... the starter is a very light load on the engine ... so teeth that stood up to the motor being driven by the starter are not going to die when the motor takes the starter.
BTW ... on a savage (650 1 cyl), the teeth will get eaten when the motor backfires at startup, because the crank will reverse direction with serious force and clean spin the starter in the reverse direction with it turning forward on the button. Insane. The savage's starter clutch will feel right at home on the USS Missouri, its that beefy. So maybe you got backfiring on steroids on that thing.
Cool.
Buddha.

[alois71]

I am going to pull the rotor b/c the starter clutch is the primary problem in Starwalts disease thus causing the sequale of idle gear --> starter ka boom. 

I have ordered an oil pump simply because this might be a chicken and egg relationship causing starwalts...

Per Starwalts original quote on 12/11/2004 http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=13774.msg119546#msg119546

The starter gear has a brass liner with a hole and machined channels for the distribution of oil that is sourced from the hole in the crankshaft. If insufficient oil exits the crankshaft hole, insufficient oil gets into the channels. Not enough oil in the channels, not enough oil to prevent the starter gear from getting cozy with the shim or the opposite side of the starter gear and the crankshaft. IF a suffciently small particle escapes into this oil delivery system and gets between the starter gear and the shim...munch, chew, chomp.

And Wondertwin o 11.18.2006 referred to the oil as sludging stating http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=31916.msg352368#msg352368
My comments on sludge didn't have anything to do with the dogs in the lock-up mechanism; that all seemed to be in pretty good order.  I was thinking along the lines of sludge blocking an oil gallery and starving the little oil hole of its lubrication (thus siezing the big gear).  Though the engine seems a bit gunky inside, it's pure speculation on my part.  Heck, the dogs could have been glued in place, but sprung free when I tapped the gear off the rotor.

.Alois

[starwalt]

...It is true the starter clutch spins in both directions- not easy though...

Uh, shouldn't the clutch only spin/slip on the crank in one direction?
If both directions, then the clutch wont grab the crank when driven by the idler/motor train.

Since his clutch is not locked onto the shaft, like mine was, it won't hurt to be thorough while the patient is open and on the table.

An initial look in my GS parts pile showed no idler gear...so far.

[The Buddha]

Not idler really, I am calling the starter driven gear an idler (its defintely not).
Alois - I think you are taking the whole starwalts thing too literally. I had a completely shattered rotor and coil, I didn't get starwalts. I'd say its a very very small possiblity ... starwalts will remain very vrey rare for some time to come.
Your crank engagement gear spins on the shaft both directions = problem. Not startwalts, its just that your starter clutch is shot. Starwalts = its not spinning free in any direction.
Yea split it by all means. You dont want to ignore 1/2 problems and have it get much much worse, which it can here ... like I did (my rotor broke up due to the fact that my starter clutch was making a loud tonk sound at startup for a year, and I ignored it ... the vibrations must have gotten the magnet to disintegrate inside out.
Cool.
Buddha.

[alois71]

I am an idiot. But first the good news.

I got the slide hammer from Starwalt today, and although I didn't intend on taking off the gear and rotor I decided to give it one wack. Low and behold, the sucker came off way too easy.




Now here comes the super stupid thing I have done.
First the pic





The somewhat large hole in the bottom right. Well believe it or not, but a flipping DIME fell in it. It was stuck to the velcro on my glove and it luckily fell in! How in the hell do I get this out? I haven't really looked in there due to my immense frustration but I have a feeling that my simple job just got a bit harder.


And finally, similar to Starwalt. My starter gear is stuck to that rotor like one other. I will let you know how I get it off. (Thinking about dropping it from the top floor of my condo).

Just kidding.