starter

[Nlmman47]

have an 89 gl 1500, the starter wont engage the motor. it just spins. its probley the figers are not engaging. how do you get to unstick with the motor not turning

[offcenter]

You might need to rebuild the starter.
There are rebuild kits available, on Ebay I think.
Just be careful, there are several different starter motors on the 1500s.
Make sure you pull yours out first and compare your starter against
the pics you see on Ebay.

[WingAdmin]

It is going to be the starter or the sprag clutch. You won't know which until you remove the starter and try to run it out of the bike. If it still works fine, then you know it's the internal sprag clutch. If the starter doesn't turn outside of the bike, then you know it's the starter.

That said...sprag clutch failures on the 1500 are exceedingly rare. It's almost always the starter.

[Nlmman47]

if you pull the starter will the internals stay in place or will it fall. i had an 1100 and the sprocket inside fell down. will everything stay in place when removing the starter

[WingAdmin]

if you pull the starter will the internals stay in place or will it fall. i had an 1100 and the sprocket inside fell down. will everything stay in place when removing the starter

The four-cylinder wings have the sprocket that the starter engages inside a chain. That sprocket can fall and become misaligned when the starter is pulled out, making it difficult to get the starter back in. You can mitigate that by having the bike on the side stand when you pull it.

The 1500 is a different beast - the starter also runs the reverse function, so it goes directly into a complex set of gears, with no chain involved - so you won't have the same problem.

Just be ABSOLUTELY sure that when you reinstall the starter that the spline shaft is properly aligned with the gear and the starter is fully seated against the engine before you bolt it in place. People have tried to install the starter when the spline was not aligned, leaving a little gap between the starter and the engine - which they then tried to fix by torquing down the bolts. This will BREAK the gear inside the engine, requiring you to remove the engine and split the case to repair!

[WingAdmin]

Did this problem just suddenly start happening?

Does it work sometimes, or it now NEVER cranks the engine?

Does the reverse still work?

[Nlmman47]

it just all of sudden quit spinning the engine

[gordonv]

First, place the transmission in gear, and bump/turn the engine over a little bit.

Try the starter. If it engages, then the teeth have broken off in the engine. If it doesn't, then most likely the starter itself. Remove starter and inspect both engine and starter. Put power to the starter and see if it spins.

Riding a Valkyrie hydro lock can be a big problem, and then you turn the engine over and it's seized and you shear the teeth off of the starter gears. Trying to find a picture/post from VRCC or my own pics.

Not the picture I wanted, but I found this link with working pic.
http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index. ... 407.0.html

You can remove the starter and with a flashlight look into the back of the engine and see that gear. Rotate it to inspect it 360'

Something wrong with the postimage.org pictures.

Found good pictures.
http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index. ... cseen.html