starter motor spinning backwards?

so i am having a helluva time with this, but i took my starter out to clean a couple of weeks ago and upon putting it back in it seems to freewheel. i checked the direction of it and made a note of it, it spins the same way the gear that it engages with is free spinning. now, i imagine that it is supposed to spin the other way, so that the gear spins the way it isnt free spinning.

i keep seeing or hearing people say "its really easy to put together where it spins backwards" and i have to ask how? i didnt flip the brushes or anything like that, and nothing was put back in a manner other than it was taken apart.

i have read some people suggest it was the outer casing that holds the magnets was on backwards (truthfully, one of the only possible things i can see having happened-havent been able to test this yet)

and other people saying battery levels (had it plugged into a charger, it was 100% and it had always engaged prior to this) and oil levels (i was a little low but right before taking it off, it was engaging just fine).

anybody that can help me out would be a huge help. i have a backlog of things i want to get done but am waitin until i get this figured out first. its been bothering me to the nth degree for almost 2 weeks now.

i need the expertise of some of our members here

 

also ive been seeing people suggest you can ground them out, or somehow zap them and they spin backwards but i really dont think anything like that happened. my dad is a long time mechanic, of both bikes and cars and he is pretty good in the garage but this is frustrating him as he has not seen this before either

 

The brush plate is installed incorrectly; this is actually pretty common. There are more than one "notch" in the brush plate, you used the wrong one to "index" the plate is all. It isn't far out of position; if it were, it wouldn't spin at all.

 

ok, thanks! now there is an answer i can get down on. i appreciate it, and will slide it over a notch at a time until the sucker works!

hopefully thats all it is and i wont be back on here asking any more starter related questions

 

My dad is thoroughly shook by the fact that indeed we had it lined up at what looked correct: notch bend down a bit, all fitting together nicely etc and yet we needed to throw out conventional wisdom in moving it to where the notches didnt line up to sort of lock it in, but it all still closed up tight and whatnot and whaddya know - IT WORKED! Well you obviously expected it to work, but it just didnt make much sense and my dad was adament that it wouldnt work. It doesnt make any sense to me, but im no expert in electricty or mechanics but he is a machinist, engineer and mechanic so he was absolutely mind boggled and borderline dismissive depite the fact that it works (hes a harley guy, apparently that doesnt exactly translate into knowledge of metric bikes...zzzing!) but yeah, i have no idea how that causes it to spin backwards but i feel like i learned something and again, thank you for the tip

 

I think my starter is spinning backwards after taking apart and cleaning. On the brush plate all I see are three tabs apparently not for index and one angled tab. Am I missing something.
Symptom: High pitched spinning (sounds like vacuum cleaner), but I do hear a little sputter when trying to start.

 

That makes no sense.

If you "hear a little sputter when trying to start" it can't be spinning the wrong way.

If the starter spins the wrong way, it simply spins and doesn't engage the motor at all. If yours is turning the motor over, it's not spinning the wrong way.

 

is it possibly that I got the gear not positioned correctly, where its not full engaged? It sound like it did when I tested it off the bike, like it doesn't have a load on it. That's why I thought it might be spinning backwards.

 

that is what i went through. even though it doesnt make ANY sense, try rotating the tangs to just fit in different grooves. i bet you will fix it just like it did within 2 or 3 tries. its so weird, and i stil cant wrap my head around it, but i did it and it worked. first try actually. good luck!

 

Sooooooo......... then it may actually be possible that my starter IS spinning backward which may be why I'm not starting, and the sputtering I'm hearing is just the exhaust puffing from my engine spinning the wrong way????? Does that make sense? And is there a sure fire way to know I am spinning backwards, like watching the crank while I push the start button. Should be spinning counterclockwise right? I was thinking carburetor issues, but now not so sure. Thanks guys.

 

Counterclockwise, yes. You just have to remove the left handside engine cover to see the way the engine spins.

 

Thanks que and web. Definitely spinning counterclockwise. So, back into the my favorite part of the whole bike.........the carburetors. DUH DAH DUHHHNN

 

For future reference, the starter can't spin the motor backwards; it's a centrifugal/sprag clutch otherwise known as a "one way" clutch. If the starter spins backwards it simply spins and doesn't engage anything.