$500 too much?

i 2nd what hog fiddles says starter gear problems are a major pain. Carbs are a royal pain to remove and get right. I had a few of the newer style 84 up. Hated working on them not user friendly everything is sharp expect lots of cuts

 

Apparently there is (or was, in 1988) a place in California that would weld the round starter gear to the housing for half the price of a new starter--which would have the same problems. According to the article on the Virago tech site, this fixes the problem?

 

Or you can put it in first gear and roll it. That'll help suss out a couple of things.

EDIT: now I see FtUp said that too, but I fear he may be right about high gear, not first gear like I said.

 

hah, very well said.

 

Yes, if you want to bump start a manual trans engine, I is easier to do in high gear.

FU

 

If i remember correctly the starter gear fix only works if the rest of the gear teeth are not chipped up or rounded off. I have not messed with them in 7-8 years or so.
The problem is when they start sounding like a bunch of rocks. They slam into another gear. People just keep starting them til the just will not start anymore and idler the starter gear and stator gear get all ground up. Not on all but a lot of them. There are many very low mile bikes out there back in the mid 80s yamahas fix was like 650.00 and it would do the same thing again in a short amount of time and people did not want to spend an extra 650 when you could buy a new bike for about 2k.

 

Heard that.

 

If the engine will not turn over, can I still check the compression? Do I need to try and bump start it in order to do so?

 

Well if it won't turn over, you can't check compression