My wife's motorcycle hasn't been out of the garage this year, the starter was acting poorly, it would disengage as it cranked, not good and it scared the crap out of her.
If you've never seen one motorcycle starters are interesting, and this one especially because it's chain drive. Its got a non-reversing (my term, I don't know the proper one) rig so it can't be driven by the crankshaft. I did some research and discovered that the problem I was having is quite common and a relatively cheap (~$20) kit replaces it. The kit has 3 springs, 3 pusher rod things and 3 cylinders. The spring pushes the pusher rod which pushes the cylinders against the starter's secondary gear's shaft (the on the other end of the before mentioned chain drive) when the engine is running the cylinders are pushed away from the shaft and the starter can't push the engine anymore. Quite a clever system and it prevents running the starter against the engine. The biggest 2 issues I had in the whole job is that 1, the last person into that part of the engine had goobered the gasket back on with RTV and 2 I couldn't get the flywheel off without a special puller ($10)... So finally tonight I had cleaned all the nasty gasket and RTV off and used the puller to remove the flywheel. I installed the starter kit and proved it works (woot!), then put a SMALL smear of grey RTV (my favorite) on the engine, then put in the gasket. Interestingly its steel, never seen that before but its a Kawasaki factory part. Then another small smear of RTV and the outer housing. Tomorrow I'll run it and see if it leaks. Normally I wouldn't use RTV but I did this job on my Honda last year and never could get it leak free without RTV. This chamber is oil filled (at least part filled) when the engine is running, I guess theres some pressure too... Anyway, not MB but quite satisfying. -Curt _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
