Boxerworks.com

so I've got this R65, i try to crank it, i push the starter & i hear the starter spinning over but it doesn't engage the flywheel, the motor doesn't turn over. whats the deal here? I keep putting off tearing into it because I keep thinking its a electrical issue. does this issue sound familiar?
insight needed.
thanks all.
matt

It's sounds like a textbook bendix/solenoid/starter problem,
You must have a used starter around, no?
Or fix that one, simple if you have the parts

I agree with gspd.

You know one thing for sure Matt, the gear on the starter is not engaging with the flywheel, otherwise the starter motor wouldn 't spin freely. It would HAVE to turn the engine over.

The solenoid in the starter has two functions. It makes the high current connection between the battery and starter motor through a set of heavy contacts. The other functiion is to mechanically push the starter gear into engagement with the flywheel teeth.

There is another slight possibility for a problem, onr that I have seen on cars but haven't heard about on Airheads. If some teeth get knocked off the engine flywheel, and if the engine comes to rest in the right location, then it is possible for the solenoid to throw the gear into the flywheel, but if the flywheel teeth are missing, then the starter will then spin aimlessly.

I don't recall is you can see the flywheel teeth through the timing hole, but if you can I suppose you could look at the teeth while you have somebody turn the motor over using 5th gear and tugging on the rear wheel.

In any event I think the thing to do would be to pull the starter. Almost certainly disassembly of the starter will reveal the problem.

Caution. If you're dealing with a Bosch starter don't pull the gear off the starter motor until you know for sure you can get it back on. I spent hours trying different techniques to get mine back on. There's a heavy round "C" clip retainer which must be compressed, with no room to do it as you push the starter gear onto the shaft. There's a web site that has a good article on disassembly and repair of the Bosch starter on the web. I don't have the URL, but somebody here does.

Ken

I'm going to swap it with a known good one, hopefully that'll fix it.