To weld or not to weld……

[Guest]

I pulled the rotor/starter clutch assembly and found bad rollers and a scared gear surface which I will assume at this point is my biggest problem with the clunking on start. The starter motor brushes are good and it always spun the motor when cold like crazy, just not good when hot and it would spin it fine once it caught. The rollers have flat spots on them.
So I have ordered new rollers, springs and the spring retainer things, and have polished up the gear surface the rollers ride on and its nice and smooth now.

My question is should I have the starter clutch welded or not. Years ago a friend, who did a lot of work on gs's, after the first failure, put in much stronger and a bit larger dim bolts (supposedly, I don't know what stock was or looked like), they are still in there and the assembly is rock solid no signs of the bolts backing off or becoming loose. And I cannot budge them at least without heat and an impact or breaker, I tried to turn them to see if they were loose at all they are TIGHT.

Any opinions???
I am lean in towards welding but need the push I guess

[Joe H]

I just buttoned up the starter clutch , new rollers, springs, cleaned up the gear surface which wasn't to bad just polished it with some fine wet sand paper, measured before and after with no noticeable size loss with my calipers.
And as per the threads on this site red locktitied the shaft and the bolt.

Now I took that clutch two of the most well know welders in the area, and neither one would weld in the area that I was told to weld in???
Both said the same 2 things which was those metals are different and that can be a problem, if you don't know what they are, and if it was in oil it would have to be disabled and thoroughly degreased or the welding would heat up oil that was trapped in the cracks and leave the weld compromised. Seeing Im at their mercy it didn't get welded. Both agreed the bolts looked great and the unit as a whole was fine and in no danger of breaking. One of them had seen one before because he recognized it as a starter clutch, but the other guy had no clue what it was or what it did until I explained it.
I wasent about to disassemble it if they were unwilling to weld it and I didn't feel the need to press the issue seeing I have to use these guys for work occasionally and I have no desire to argue seeing I know nothing about welding.

I did have the bolts tack welded so they won't back out (probably not needed) and I had to have a few beads put over where the springs and pins where trying to push there way out.

It looks ratty for sure but the welds didn't cost me much and I am in no financial position after my H2 project (which I'm still spending on) to spend a bunch of cash on this.
So for less the $60 total parts and welding we will see how long it lasts!

[JTGS850GL]

Ya, I feel your pain. Just ordered a new starter clutch setup for mine. It rattled something awful and would kick back with strange noises from time to time. Same bolts were loose on mine. Not sure I would have gone and welded the starter clutch to the hub bolts though. I'll end up using red Loctite instead. If your repair on the starter clutch is less then perfect then you basically created more of a PITA to take flywheel off. Good luck though and let us know how it ends up.

[Joe H]

I agree the weld on the bolts will be a pain but as I looked at the construction of it, if I need to take it off for a new one a grinder would be through the face of the starter clutch and those TIG welds in a couple minutes.
I also think they never would have loosened, they had been in for 16 yrs and seemd fine so welding those was questionable at best, but if the back out its a freaking mess.
Clean threads and red locktite will hold no doubt about it!
My hope is that the cobbled fix will last another 16yrs (ya' right… ) and then I will be retired and have plenty of time for fixing!

Haven't had a chance to start it yet, worked late yesterday…and now its raining, maybe this afternoon.

Also as I was working on the starter clutch I noticed the front sprocket was loose, so I took that off cleaned it all up and took care of that.

[Carter Turk]

I had the same issue with welding.
I really wanted to follow RRay's advice, but the guy welding thought he was going to melt my new starter clutch, with what appeared to be two different metals.

[Joe H]

The problem is always the unknown, if a guy has done it before and it has worked many times for years the confidence level is high. If you haven't done it before it's problematic. Thats how and why there are guys who know there particular area, whatever it is, experience is KING, if that makes any sense

The good news is the starter clutch is working fine!! All good so far, took it for a ride shut it down 4 times and restarted, NO CLANG!!
And I am surprised at the difference in the noise of the engine at idle, apparently a lot of the rattle and ticking was the starter clutch and I had just gotten used to it.

[JTGS850GL]

Here's a link to my starter clutch issue that I'm working on as well. The video link compares the sound of a good clutch to a bad one:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?231925-GS1100G-starter-clutch-issues

It's amazing how much noise the starter clutch will introduce into the engine.

[Fjbj40]

Well I just had to pull the starter clutch of my 1000, again! Less than 1000 km's and it was making noise. Last time I put it together I used the red permanent locktite and torqued to FSM torque.

I am thinking this time red locktite again and mig weld.

I have the kill switch mod to spin her over to prevent the kickback but with the 10.5:1 Yosh pistons it sometimes still happens.

[JTGS850GL]

Let me know if you need a replacement starter clutch. I have one for a 1000 that's in great shape for a reasonable price.

[Fjbj40]

Thanks, will let you know if I need it.

cheers

[JTGS850GL]

OK. By the way, it's the one in my video comparison between my bad 1100G clutch and the 1000 clutch. Smooth and quite with no signs of damage.