83 big red starter binding

[salisbury4573]

Had an oil leak, removed left side cover to replace gasket. Put it all back together and now starter acts very weak or is possibly binding up.

I left key on overnight last week, but battery still had enough juice to turn it over very well. I did loosen the left side cover bolts a little and it turned over better after loosening.

Battery is super slow to charge up and acts dead quickly after just a few tries. Brand new AGM battery.

Gonna replace the solenoid and open the left side back up to see if I doubled up a washer on the starter gearing assembly and bound it up. Or maybe over torqued the part that goes on the main shaft just before the recoil starter.


Anyone have issues with a solenoid acting weird all of a sudden? Or with starter binding after doing work on left side case cover?

[Snazzy93]

It's been years since I've worked on a big red, so bare with me because I forget what's all entailed with the left side case.

The first thing i would do is try jumping the selanoid with a screwdriver or something. If it still acts up, then you can eliminate the selanoid being an issue.

I've had batteries that were bad, even brand new. Especially small powersports batteries. You never really know exactly how long they sat before being purchased. Try using a volt meter. Obviously it should read handy to 12 volts. When you hit the starter, if it drops below 11 volts, that usually indicates the the battery has a bad cell, or there's a short somewhere that's over loading the battery.

As I said I forget what all needs to be removed to replace that side case gasket, but if the starter needs to be removed, it's possible it's just in a bind. Does it pull smoothly? Just making sure something in the engine itself isn't in a bind because of re assembly.

[salisbury4573]

Thanks for the reply, I am going to start troubleshooting shortly. Yes the recoil starter pulls smoothly. I'll jump the solenoid first thing to make sure that's eliminated.

Thanks again