Hey all, been a while!

So I went to start'er up last night after adjusting the tension in my chain, and it was a no-go.  Starter motor spins just fine, but doesn't engage so I'm thinking it's gotta be the starter clutch stuck in the "open" position.  She had been exhibiting some intermittent weirdness recently, including one instance of the dreaded *clunk* at startup.

Anyways, guess I'm gonna have to open up the left engine cover and see what's up.  I'll keep you guys/gals posted.  What's the more common culprit in this case?  Worn roller springs in the clutch?  Or do the rollers themselves get destroyed over time?

Look for goats syndrome AKA Starwalts diesease.  http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=38758.msg437562#msg437562

Actually she had a mild case of goat's a couple of years back (8000 miles ago), except the magnet never shattered.  It just cracked and was bouncing around in place making a clicking type of noise.  Upon replacing the generator rotor I did get a chance to inspect the starter clutch and everything looked fine. 

I'm curious now though, maybe some tiny piece of magnet did end up sticking around there accelerating wear of the rollers... 

Any thing is possible.

So here's what I found out yesterday -- no goat's, all the magnets in the rotor are in fine condition. 

Regarding the starter clutch (refer to this diagram) it appears that the idler/reduction gear (marked 1) had shifted outward along its pin (2) enough so that the driven gear (marked 3 I guess) was resting in the groove between the large diameter and small diameter portions of the idler gear.

Couple of questions:

1) The driven gear itself has a back-and-forth play of about 2.5 mm.  In other words I can slide it 2.5 mm along the crankshaft with my hand.  Question - Is this normal?  Have people noticed this on their bikes?  The Clymer and Haynes don't say.  It seems like a lot of play, but I don't know what I could do about it except checking that the bolt securing the rotor to the crankshaft is tight enough (which I will do of course).

2) How could the idler gear slide back and forth that much?  I thought the tolerances would be designed to prevent this from happening.  The gear itself shows no signs of wear or anything, it looks like new.

My first guess was that the 2.5 mm play in the driven gear could have caused this, but then I tried shifting it manually to both extremes and it was still engaging the idler gear.

With the cover off you can move that gear back and forth, but once the cover goes on it reduces the freeplay( since it cant go through the cover  )

Now how much free play you have once the bike is put back together,who knows. Once I get my new stator rotor mounted up I will check mine out.

I figured it out.  The bolt holding the generator rotor onto the crankshaft was very loose.  So much in fact that the rotor and hence the starter clutch assembly was spinning freely on the tapered end of the crankshaft.

I was very very lucky, no damage at all to the rotor or the stator, or anything else in there.  Could've been really ugly...   

Wow. That would have been a mess because the rotor was in danger of running afoul of the windings if it flopped around too much.

Whew!  I hope you went to torque spec to tighten it (and just a little more).

Yea, you came within a squillionth of an inch of grinding everything in there into guacamole.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on April 03, 2008, 01:03:13 PM
Yea, you came within a squillionth of an inch of grinding everything in there into guacamole.
Cool.
Buddha.

S******h, you're The Buddha now?   

Quote from: WildBlue on April 03, 2008, 10:21:14 PM

Quote from: The Buddha on April 03, 2008, 01:03:13 PM
Yea, you came within a squillionth of an inch of grinding everything in there into guacamole.
Cool.
Buddha.

S******h, you're The Buddha now?   

S*****th is the great Buttha now. 

Nope, never heard of him.
Cool.
Buddha.

That's an interesting failure!

Luckly, an easy fix by the sound of it.  That's always a good thing.   

Good to see you around again.   

I finally rode my bike for the first time today after fixing the above problem.

I was happy. It's such a peppy bike. Much better than a Ninja 250 and alot lighter than a CBR600.  I've owned both of those. I didn't fit on the CBR too comfortably, and the 250 was a piece of  .......  anyways, I can't wait to get my license plate and insurance and get out and ride before winter comes around!!! I need a new battery... my current one barely turns it over... so depressing that I have to spend 40 bucks on something so useless...