[Sand-n-Sea]

Another Learning experience that I'd like to share; this one's a possible solution for those who have a broken starter gear boss on their engine case.

I was messing with the AFR and made the mistake of too much fuel at idle.....so rich that I had some backfire when starting.
It turns out that a backfire at idle puts stress on the starter "idler gear boss" which can break it, as a good number of fellow WC 1000/X owners have experienced.
The "right" thing to do is replace the case, but that's some serious cash and requires pretty much rebuilding the engine. So being the cheap (yet handy) guy that I am, I went the easy/inexpensive (and ugly) route......

... and this is what I did:

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

First off, this is a pic of the broken boss. Seems this is typical

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

I needed to pull the engine and take it to an expert TIG Welder. The plan was to build up and reinforce the Boss with new aluminum. AND to do this WITHOUT taking the engine apart (whoo hoo!). It took less than an hour for my Welder to get it done. All I had to do was take the engine to him dry of all fluids and with the stator cover removed.
This is the aluminum build up he did.

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

Now I needed to carefully recreate the hole for the gear shaft. i used a dremel first, and then a few drill bits, stepping up slightly larger and then larger again without making the hole to big. I also drilled deeper by a 1/2 inch into the boss then the original shaft went in.

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

The original shaft for this boss was 44mm (0829-032). Since I drilled deeper into the boss, I used the longer 58mm (0829-031) shaft as the #1 boss uses.

Then putting the Stator cover on to check fit I found I needed to grind off some of the shaft to shorten it. I did this a few times until the cover would sit flush.

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

Now I checked how the idler gear fit into the flywheel and filed flat the area where it rode against the boss. Notice the gear bevels are OUT.

It fit nice.... so I fit the #1 gear as well

and the spacer

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

Through the entire process I was fitting the cover on after every step to check fit. I took my time to help eliminate mistakes.
Even though the new shaft was pretty snug, I put a small amount of JB Weld into the boss on final assembly. This made the whole thing rock-solid.
Before I put the engine back in I'll replace the Stator cover seal; the spring came off the old one.

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

I'm pretty confident this will work well. AND it's stronger than original.
Special thanks to Doghouse for inspiration and the name of a good welder

 

[Hollywood]

NICE! I'm making it a sticky.

 

[missiondude]

Looks good. Did Cam do the welding?

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

Looks good. Did Cam do the welding?

Yes he did!

 

[Stray Bullet]

I noticed in your pictures the starter shaft engages the gear most of the way across. When I updated mine it only engages about half way a across the gear. I checked the old starter and gear and it appeared to be the same. Also in pictures of broken old style 58 T gears they seem to only brake the inner parts of the teeth off. I wonder if some of the motors are not properly fitting and this is causing some of the issues? I haven't driven mine much since I did the upgrade so I don't know if it seems to be ok or not.

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

Is it possible that your starter is not ALL the way seated? With the play in the starter bolt holes (oblong) it's possible to bolt down the starter and not have it fully seated.

 

[SandSissy]

^^^^^Unfortunately...(and I don't know if this is a big deal) the upgraded starter has round holes. It simply wont go in, so you have to oblong them out a little bit so the bolts will go in. It's a damned if you do...damned if you don't!!

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

I used a dremel to oblong them.... took like 5 minutes. But that's not the issue..... what doesn't make sense is it's an upgrade made for pre-2016 motors....and it won't fit those without the "oblong" mod. Go figure...

 

[SandSissy]

^^^Zactly :tapedshut:

 

[Stray Bullet]

The starter I took out had round holes like the starter upgrade. I didn't oblong them out. Is this something I would need to do. When I put it in it seemed to go in OK but I had a hard time getting the bolts started. After getting them started it seemed to go in OK but maybe it isn't in all the way. I will have to try to look at it tomarrow.

 

[Stray Bullet]

When you are ob-longing the holes which direction do you do it. towards the starter motor or away?

 

[Sand-n-Sea]

You open the holes up AWAY from the starter.

 

[Stray Bullet]

So today I took a half day off to do more important things like work on my cat. Looked at the starter and it seemed to have a gap between the engine and starter. I took it off and ob longed the holes. It made it way easier to put the bolts back in also. I was able to push the starter in about 1/4 inch more and it is now snugged up to the engine. The thing that bothers me is the old starter was the same way and put in at the factory. When I looked at the gear and starter shaft it was only contacting the gear half way. I'm sure this is also what has led to others breaking the gear. So for now I'm ready to go and looking forward to sand hollow in Hurricane in November. Thanks for everybody's input. Hopefully I can make it the whole time for this rally since the last two rally on the rocks in Moab I only was able to ride two days then had engine problems. This last time I lost the rear cylinder. When we tore it apart it had a very bad oil ring and would have never sealed any oil. The thing is their was no wear on the inside of the cylinder and it looked like new in the engine. D&P thinks it was installed that way from the factory. I hate times like this, you spend a lot of money and don't enjoy your time.