Well this is a first

[fritzwilliam]

I put my bike in the shop about a week ago with a starting issue, I thought maybe the starter was just shot, even though the bike only has 25,000 miles on it. Bike has been terrible to start below 55 degrees. I'm not that harsh on it when starting it up cold, I thumb starter and let it fire up and then rev it to about 2000 rpms and let it idle until it can stay up on it's own.

This time last week however, something else happened...

byebyeengine.jpg

I don't have a picture of the actual damage, but the lower half of what I have circled in red has been torn completely off. I'm assuming that's where the other gear is mounted between the starter and the starter clutch (don't know if that's right).

The dealership I took it to says they might be able to rebuild it by welding it, I'm not too mechanically inclined and am just wanting opinions. I asked what could possibly do this and they said something along the lines of the starter kicking back but they didn't know for sure.

It's my thinking that a simple weld job isn't going to work if it doesn't address the issue of how the thing was torqued off in the first place. Before I brought it into the shop I bump started it to make sure it would fire, fired no problems, but I could swear I felt the starter continually turning over without even thumbing the switch.

Meh, probably more of a rant... just not sure where to go from here.

[g00gl3it]

ouch. Good luck.

[boogunoogun]

That blows. How many miles on the bike?

[nd4spdbh]

dang... this is a frist ... never heard of this happening on the 919... its hard to see in the pic what actually happend... but yes there is spost to be a gear in there.

only thing i could think of is somehow the started got hit exactly when the motor got spun in reverse from a mis start.... and the motor and starter going in opposite directions found the weak link.


and wtf was that mechanic thinking... taking the whole motor out removing the WHOLE top end.... only to remove the side cover and see what was going on.

[fritzwilliam]

Guess I should have stated, I grabbed that image off someone on this forum who did an engine rebuild. It was the clearest one I could find, but your image shows it clearer.

[Pvster]

Originally Posted by nd4spdbh

and wtf was that mechanic thinking... taking the whole motor out removing the WHOLE top end.... only to remove the side cover and see what was going on.

it looks like the mechanic was prepping to have it welded. look how clean that block is!

[nd4spdbh]

Originally Posted by fritzwilliam

Guess I should have stated, I grabbed that image off someone on this forum who did an engine rebuild. It was the clearest one I could find, but your image shows it clearer.

oh ok so thats not your motor in the original post.... got it haha.


i wonder that the side case looks like... i highly doubt the pin that the counter gear spins on is only held in place by the inboard side.... usually stuff like that is captured on both sides.

A good welder should be able to fix it if they know what they are doing.

[boogunoogun]

make sure to get pics if you can

[Mr T81]

That pin must be pressed into the block, wonder if there's
a way to pull it out and put a new one in?
Better be a damn good welder to do a fix like that...

[Mr T81]

On second thought, I took my cover off to get it
powdercoated last winter and if i remember properly
that middle gear fell on the floor with the pin.

Somebody on this forum must have their cover off
during the winter...

You should be able to pull the broken piece of the pin
out and buy a new one.

[woodyeee]

Its a picture of my engine if i'm not mistaken......That small gear is easy to remove, its probably best to remove the starter,then just pull the round pin out the middle of the gear and the gear will come out.......buy another gear from a breakers rather than have it welded. It should be a cheap part if you buy a used one.

[Ottawa919]

Well that seems like an easy fix, based on woodyeee's post.

Strange thing to happen though...

[mcromo44]

Originally Posted by Ottawa919

Well that seems like an easy fix, based on woodyeee's post.

Strange thing to happen though...

I would not feel comfortable doing the repair unless I knew what the mode of failure was.
So one can make sure it doesn't promptly do the same thing again.
Bizarre.
I have never ever heard of such a thing before.
Stuff does happen though.
It will be interesting to see inside rickard's re his issue.