I put a new starter on my bike. The old one had been acting up some lately, and given that it has >80K miles on it, I though it was good PM to replace it before this season's road trips. Looking around, it seems the All ***** starter is what everyone recommends, so I went with one of those. I agonized over whether to get the Hitachi or the Prestolite version, the difference being the thread on the mounting bolts. Then I looked at the starter and there on the side it said "HITACHI" on it, so that settled that.

Took the old starter off. Easy enough. Couple nuts,bolts and the battery cable. The new All ***** 1.4KW (more power than the one on my truck) starter goes on a little differently. You take it apart and the front part bolts to the primary with some caps head screws, then the rest of the starter bolts to that. The original chrome end cap has nowhere to go and it and the end bracket aren't needed anymore. They also supply a little spacer that fits inside the solenoid to push the contacts together a little harder. I put that in, and fiddled with the guts of the solenoid and wound up with more problems. Put a new solenoid on with the spacer disk in. Threw a new battery on for good measure. 300 amp glass mat battery for $65 off Amazon. It now spins significantly faster than it ever has before. I should check the tach. I mean, that starter must be twice the speed of the original starter.

I also wonder if the spacer disk wouldn't help The Dreaded Click issues.

Anyway, 3 weeks to Texas, right? And 2 months to Sturgis.

 

Nice write up, Doc.

 

Let us know how that starter works out for you Doc,
I put one in my bike a while back but it made a lot of noise so I pulled it back out and put a stock one back in.

 

Nice post for the older Evo's, never heard anything about All ***** starters on them until now.

Mine has been warrior and have one on the Twinkie. The only issue installing one on the Evo is had to put the starter in the freezer and warm up the inner cover so I didn't have to pull it in by the bolts

 

When I first put it in, it made funky noises. Actually, the solenoid made funky noises. I had the solenoid apart and did some fiddling with it, and I wasn't sure if I messed it up or what, but it wasn't working. With my extra relay kicking the solenoid in, there was no shortage of power to it, but I think the battery voltage was dropping under load. I ordered the new battery, charged it, put it in, same noises. Then I dug out an Accel solenoid that I didn't put on back when I was diagnosing The Dreaded Click years ago. At that time, it did the same thing as the original one. Anyway, that solenoid with the extra spacer, which I super glued onto the end of the solenoid rod thing that goes inside the plunger thing, worked out.

I didn't have to take off the part that fits onto the primary. I left that alone. The FSM has you take that off, but there's plenty of area to work, so I left all that in.

 

Talked to All ***** Racing today regarding my starter and they have a lifetime warranty, which I am sending mine (1.6kW) back and will be receiving their newer 1.7kW model. They changed something (source?) and I the starter clutch area (bushings were cheap Chinese junk).