Hello everyone,

This is a great forum. I've been lurking it for a long time but have never posted. Now it's almost riding season and I'm stumped so it's time to look for some input. Last year at the end of the year my bike (2003 Fatboy) was starting really hard and would just whine most of the time when the start button was pressed. It progressively got worse and worse until I just parked it for good in October. From what I could gather, it sounded like a starter clutch. I ended up replacing the starter clutch and putting the bike back together to test it out. This being my first time working on a motorcycle, I tried it with the primary off because I figured if it didn't work it'd be easier to get the starter back off (I now know you aren't supposed to do that. I don't see any damage to the jack shaft). Low and behold, the plunger would extend and engage the flywheel, but it wouldn't turn it, and it wouldn't retract all the way off the flywheel.

I then decided to just take the starter to a starter shop and let them deal with it. They just called me the other day and told me they took everything apart in the starter and solenoid and it looks like brand new. That's got me thinking, is there a possibility that the clutch was the problem and it just wasn't turning over because I had the primary off? I don't really know what else to check. I keep the battery on a trickle charger and took it in to Advanced Auto to have it load tested and that came back good, so I know it isn't the battery. The coupler between the jackshaft and the starter looked fine to me. I appreciate all feedback, I'm dying to get riding and don't know where to turn next. Thanks for reading!

 

First question to ask is how old is the battery, this may be a case of weak battery. Have you tried a jumper pack to start or just the battery? Remember to always ground the jumper pack to frame when jumping so that you run it in parallel with the current battery rather than in series.

 

Judging from your initial symptoms it sounds like you nailed it with the starter clutch - those be the symptoms, that or screeching. Great move to keep the primary off while testing the pinion engagement. You had the starter checked out. So the pinion engages but won't crank the engine? What's left but something seized, loose starter connection or the battery?