starter clutch

[north49]

Howdy Folks.....
I´m currently touring with an ´80 GS 1000 G. Fantastic ol´barge of a bike and I love it. However, the starter clutch is starting to rattle and I´m in a country where I wouldn´t let a local mechanic wash my bike let alone attack it with tools. It seems from various posts that I will need a special puller to get at the clutch. So my question is.... just what´s inside the starter clutch that rattles ? And how bad does it really have to get before I have to deal with it. I´d like to leave it until I get back to civilization ( or my own shop) which ever comes first..... but am just not too sure how serious the internals of the starter clutch are.
Any comments or philosophy welcome.
cheers
Les

[Agemax]

are you sure its the starter clutch and not the rotor come loose? its one of those job that you wont know the real problem until you take the cover off and diagnose the real problem

[Guest]

The starter clutch is behind the rotor. the rotor nut is loctite'd on (usually, should be)

Then you need a puller to get the rotor off. I have pulled the threads off more than one puller trying to get rotors off. They can prove to be difficult. I don't recomend heat as that can destroy the magnets in the rotor.

The starter clutch rides on needle bearings

[SqDancerLynn1]

does it rattle when trying to start or when running ???

[hampshirehog]

The giveaway noise is a clacking sound - not much else sounds like it.

[Griffin]

Wow. Over the past couple of years, we've had a lot of starter clutch failures. Nearly all of them on GS1000/1100 G models.

[Carter Turk]

My starter clutch on my Kat 1150 is doing the same thing. I tryed to replace the entire starter clutch including the gear, but they (Temecula) sent me the wrong gear. They sent me a 31mm ID gear instead of a 35mm. Putting the new starter clutch in did nothing for the rattle.

If the rattle is coming from the large gear behind the starter clutch, that and the roller bearings are the only things I didn't replace. I don't know if the gear alone would make that much noise/rattle.

Terry in Ohio suggested taking off the rotor, starter clutch and gears and bump starting down the block to see if the noise is eliminated. I might try that when I can find a few hours of free time. The cover will be put back on before bump starting.

The rotor puller snugged up, followed by hammer tapping, loosening, retightening seemed to work best to help loosen the grip of the rotor on the tapered end of the crankshaft.

[Don-lo]

The 3 bolts (#8 in the diagram) can come loose. You can see them in the rotor (after removing stator cover) and determine if they are loose by spinning them with a small powerful magnet. To access the bolt head, you need to pull the rotor. I have had success retightening the bolts from the back without pulling the rotor (sometimes worth trying, because in one shop I worked at, we had to cut the rotor off an 82 1100E). The procedure was reverse drilling a hole into the bolt shaft, forward drilling to move the bolt away (halfway into the threads), cleaning the threads with brake cleaner and air, applying red loctite, and then using an easy-out to reverse turn (left) the bolt till it was reasonably snug.