250 ES Starter reduction gear broke

[ahardwick]

I replaced the stator on my $250 big red. Everything was fine till a couple days ago. Noticed this god awful chunking noise while trying to start it. Tried to kickstart it and noticed every third kick it would not engage. I pulled off the reduction gear cover to find teeth sheared off the reduction gear. What would cause this? I looked at the started shaft teeth and they look about 25 years worn,but not broke off. Wondering if I should just try to find a gear ( cheaper than $55 ) and replace it. Or replace the starter too.

Ideas? Here is the gear in question.
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa123/hardwick_a/gear003.jpg

[Dirtcrasher]

Change the gear, run the starter till it dies. Maybe the one way clutch on the left side locked up? The right side one way clutch is shot because it slipped every 3rd kick.

Although it shouldn't be an issue, the worst time to run a starter is at the top of the compression stroke. If I were concerned about it, I'd kickstart it until the piston was down or "at ease".

Many people have broke them before you and merely replaced them, I wouldn't sweat it too much. My SX is 11:1 compression with a midrange cam and it turns over with the starter just fine.........

[rdlsz24]

I think it has something to do with the one-way clutch on the left side going bad as DC said. I bought a Big Red 250 last winter that had broken teeth on the starter output shaft and the reduction gears were missing completely. I'm guessing they broke sometime in the past and the previous owner just junked them and used the kick starter. If you search around on here you can find quite a bit on this issue.

Rob

[ahardwick]

How am I able to find out if the on way clutch is bad? Once it starts, it disengages, I was wondering if it had anything to do with having that side apart.

[Dirtcrasher]

If it doesn't disengage, those gears keep on turning instead of freewheeling.

The ES/SX have 2 one way clutches or one way bearings. The starter uses the left one behind the flywheel, the right one allows you to kickstart it, have the centrifugal clutch do it's job and the main clutch take over.

Confused yet?? :lol:

If your kicker slips, it's the one way clutch on the right side. If this happens, it could be the left side one. The viscosity and type of oil even affect them.......

The Service Manual tells you the tolerances, IDK them off hand.

[ahardwick]

Im confused enought to put a gear in it, sell it, and buy this really nice 200e I found