Starter Problems

I have a 1981 650 XJ and all of a sudden when I try to start the motor the starter will kick out (disengages). Its like when the bendick gear starts going out on a starter for a vehicle.
I pulled the starter and found that the gear on the starter doesn't kick in and out like a car. I found that it connects to a larger gear that free wheels in one direction.
What is making my starter kick out when I am starting it? I thought that maybe the engine was trying to start so I unplugged all of the spark plugs and tried to start it only to find that it did they same thing.
Could it be the bearing on the larger gear starting to fail?
And how do you go about replacing the larger gear? Do you have to pull the motor and split the cases?

 

What kind of Oil are you running?

There's an internal starter clutch between the starter and the motor that can slip and disengage. People say it's a "bag of rocks" kinda sound.

 

Synthetic oil has been known to make this clutch slip.

 

I believe you have hit the nail on the head because on my last oil change I used synthetic oil.
I didn't even think about that having any effect on the bike.
Now I know what I am doing today and that is changing back to go old 30 wt motor oil.

Thank you so very much.

 

Yeah! It's pretty strange. You may want to consider changing oil and a filter a second time after maybe a hundred miles or so!

Let us know how it goes!

 

STOP.

You need to change to 20W40 or 20W50 MOTORCYCLE-spec oil. Castrol 4T is widely available.

Car oil of any sort can and will cause problems such as you describe.

You don't want to run straight-weight oil in your XJ. Read your manual.