85 Maxim X- starter decided to take a early retirement

Well I just went out to start the bike for a quick ride to the gas station for the essentials when it decided that it would barely crank over. It finally started some how so I got to the gas station and when I came back out to fire it up for the return trip home nada... not even an attempt to try and roll over. So I roll it down the hill and get it to fire. Get home and proceed to crack an freshly purchased adult can of liquid goodness and start the tinkering.

Here's what I did to try and get it to work:

Idea 1: check battery voltage on starter terminal- 12.3V So it gets power when needed. Hooked boost pack up to terminal and grounded out on frame just to verify that power was not the problem...same symptoms.

Idea 2: Beat starter with screwdriver to see if that fixes it (worked on my Chevy)- sorta spun over at like 3 rpm and didn't like it.

So after idea 1 and 2: Sat back light up a smoke take another drink sit on the tailgate and try to remember where I put those damn XJ CDs to try and figure out how to get this starter off.

Finally dig them up and realize I am missing the most crucial one of them all. The one with the repair manuals on them... Then I attempt to find the external harddrive where I backed up all the CDs. Come to find out I left it at my parents house 2 hours away... so back to tinkering.

Like a dumb a$$, I decided while I was down there I would check on the generator... pull the 3 screws out and BAM!!! parts everywhere.... Great.

I think I got it put back together correctly but there is two ways to put the big coil of wire back on where the screws will feed through. Well try to push start down the hill to to see if I just FUBARed my charging system and now the bike won't fire... Great.

Get it back into the driveway and proceed to pull the two screws out of the starter... the super long front one wouldn't come all the way out but it was far enough to be out of the case. Then when I went to try and pull the starter out it felt like there was a lot of resistance so I decided to give up on it for tonight.

Sort of long rant but I feel better now.

So in short I need to know how to get the starter off to try and fix it and also what is the proper way to put the charging system back together. I tried to do some searching here but no luck.

Thanks for the help,
Nate

 

For the starter pull the 2 bolts and unhook the power cable - it pulls out then. Take it apart and check the brushes and clean everything. Should work after a rehab they are hard to kill. Yo may need to replace the brushes.

For the generator the coils should go back in only 1 way where the cable will be positioned properly, regardless the exact orientation of the coils is not important to function only to fit. Generator should not effect the bike starting as it runs off the battery until about 2k rpms.

 

Thanks Bill, I was pulling on the starter after I got the bolts out of the case but it felt like it was hung up on something and didn't want to take the chance of breaking something.

Sounds good for the generator I messed with it before I went to work today and got it to go back together... It seems to be back to normal with the wires fitting through the little gromet in the cover.

Thanks for the help.

-Nate

 

When you pull the starter apart, pay very close attention to where everything is. Have a couple cans of electric parts cleaner handy, and spray everything good. I think the brush spec is to replace at 10mm or less. Chacal has a kit that has the plate and brushes together. You can go just the brush route, but speaking from experience, pony up for the plate and brush set.

Before you put the starter on, try to spin it with your hand. If it won't, then its not assembled correctly. Keep spinning the case and ends around until you hear a click and try it again. Be careful if you start spinning the cases around to get it in the right place so that you don't mess up the brushes and wires.

There is an o-ring around the end of the starter to keep the oil in the crankcase. The resistance you are feeling is the effort to get that o-ring to unseat.

As Bill said, they are not too hard to rebuild. They can be an exercise in patience trying to get them back together correctly.