Hey All, I'm pretty new to biking and even newer to maintaining them. I picked up a 99 Fatboy a couple of weeks back and found out right away that it needed a new Bendix. I put it all together and got the bike running last night no problems, the starter engaged properly, no bad noises and good engagement to the clutch plate. This morning though after starting it a couple of times it started to grumble while starting like the pinion was not engaging properly. Eventhough the the grumbling was going on it still started fine. What did I do wrong?

I can only think it might be that the jackshaft loosened off or something (I torqued it to spec and locked it with the washer so I find this hard to believe) Talking with the PO after I found the starter issues he stated that he was having trouble for quite a while. Since I don't really have history on the bike I don't know if this was always a problem or not. Maybe I should have replaced the pinion as well (picture attached)?

Any suggestions as to what is going on? Thanks, Eric

 

Well, I removed the primary cover and found that I sheared off a couple of teeth on the pinion and did a little bit of damage to the ring gear. Looking through my manual brought me to an important note about the orientation of the coupling right at the starter. If I got this backwards I am thinking that there was not enough travel in teh solenoid to fully engage the teeth of the ring gear. I haven't taken the starter back out yet to see if I put the coupling on wrong. Is my assumption correct? Man, do I feel dumb..I always seem to have to learn the hard way.

How much "wear" on the ring gear is too much..as you might have guessed I do not want to have to replace that too..

Thanks, Eric

 

Okay, now I took the starter back out and failed to see anything wrong with it. The coupling that I thought might be backwards is on correctly. Looking at my manual and my installation is dead on...I have no idea why the pinion failed. I ordered up the 66 tooth ring gear and pinion set as I figured that there was too much damage to the existing ring gear...It really does not fix the underlying problem. I would hate to install another 100 bucks worth of parts a a few hours of my time to have it happen again..