Starter spins and spins and spins and....

[rohde88]

what did you use to tighten the bolt? I first used a 1/2 ratchet and socket reassembled and no luck, then i got out my 1/2 impact gun also used red loctite then used all 650ft pounds of torque reassembled and that's that. Prior I did what you are doing checking this and that. I was able to use a remote starter and turn the starter over with the cover off that is how I found the problem, I also went as far ass checking the timing chain. So if you can find some specs for that bolt and get a good torque wrench and give that a try or just use an impact and be done with it.

SOLVED! I used a socket and penny in the gears, cranked on it with a breaker bar. Works, at least, more permanently than two days ago. I had re-assembled the clutch incorrectly, so after tightening the loose crankshaft bolt, it was fixed until the clutch crapped out. I re-assembled it properly and it has been solid for about 20 starts and 30 min of riding. Overall, I'm "glad" this happened since it gave me a chance to epoxy the magnets and ward off goats.

Symptoms: battery not charging as the bolt backed off and wouldn't spin the magnets. Worse symptoms had starter gear + stator slipping and intermittently spinning the crank. Final symptom was spins and spins and spins

[The Buddha]

Symptoms: battery not charging as the bolt backed off and wouldn't spin the magnets. Worse symptoms had starter gear + stator slipping and intermittently spinning the crank. Final symptom was spins and spins and spins

Oh those are the sumptoms for Rohde's syndrome.
Wht didn't you just tell us you had Rohde's man. 
Cool.
Buddha.

[rohde88]

UPDATE: the repair held solid for 10K more miles, but recently started spinning freely again. I took the LH cover off and re-tightened the main bolt which provided a brief fix. I've been reading more about the starter clutch, maybe I'll invest in some beefier springs.

Bump starting works for a temporary gap, just annoying if it ever dies while I'm at an intersection.

[KlaXon]

If you want to tight that bolt, you need to take out the clutch cover too.

From one side hold this nut:

From other this:

Then the motor cant spin, and you be able to tight it well.

[rohde88]

Thanks Klax. I popped off the RH engine clutch cover this morning and exposed that very large nut you mentioned. On the starter side, the main bolt was again very loose. This time I held the nut and tightened the main center bolt. It started right up, but usually tightening the center bolt will work for 10-20 starts anyway we shall see if this works!

Keywords added randomly for future searches

[KlaXon]

Earlier i had this problem too, but when i figured out this method, it works perfect