Starter help.......help......help........

Okso Betty (my 1982 xj550) died....just stopped cranking out of the blue.......though it might be battery so bought a brand new one....no result......then thought it might be solenoid....took it out and took it up to local bike shop to have it tested and he said its fine.....actually in really great working condition..........so now i have to take out the starter and have it tested.....yay me........the only problem is i can't get the darn thing off......it has three bolts on it..........a top left, bottom left, and bottom right bolt..........the bottom right one was an allen bolt........i took off all three and the starter wont budge..........am i missing something?......is there some secret xj voo doo to get this thing off my bike?.....any help would be apprecatied.....

 

nope youre not missing anything. try tappin it with a hammer lightly to break the seal it may be stuck if its never been removed

 

ok so i finally got the starter out....and yes there is some xj voo doo you have to use on it...believe it or not you have to take off the foot peg, then the foot shifter, then the big plate bedind the shifter, and then........magically.........the starter slides right out........easy as pie......thanks to all who gave help and suggestions throughout my posts....the only question now is do i get the stsrter rebuilt, but a new one, or try and find one on e-bay.....what do you guys think?....

 

I'm in the same boat you're in, just getting ready to pull my starter out now.

My bike sat in storage for 10yrs. I took it to a Yamaha dealer and they rebuilt all the carbs and brakes and everything else like rubber seals and thing like the vacuum gas valve on the tank and new tires. Spent $1000.00 doing it but the bike only has 9K miles and is in perfect shape so I figured it was worth it.

After riding a week I started having starter troubles and bought the manual so I could start doing my own repairs to save some cash.

The Clymer repair manual suggests taking it apart and cleaning all the carbon dust and dirt from the armature, case and end covers.

Clean the armature with a rag soaked in solvent but do not soak it.

Then measure the length of the brushes with a caliper, if they are less then .200 inches replace them.

Seems like a pretty basic repair and shouldn't be too hard.

Hope that's all it is, rebuilt starters are expensive and a used one might put you back in the same position in a short time.

Good luck...

 

had the starter "fixed" by a guy that only does batteries, starters, and alternators. he cleaned the whole thing out and replaced the brushes. she now cranks in less than a second. its amazing what a difference the cleaning made. and he only charged me sixty bucks......

 

I just finished putting mine back together after a good cleaning. You couldn't even see the brushes there was so much carbon and oil muck everywhere.

Just hooked it up on the bench to a 12v supply and boy does it fly.

Didn't cost me a penny just a couple hours going slow taking pics so I had a reference to use putting it back together.

Happy camper here...