Starter clutch replacement

[mbova]

So I changed my starter clutch on my 89 venture. Let me tell you it is a *****. Here are some tips if you are going to do it. I bought a long alan wrench ratchet set, the bit that I tried with my dewalt 20volt impact driver didn't work. The ratchet did. You will probably need to take off the clutch cover to give you room to work . I did and it made it a lot easier. You will need a box wrench or an adjustable wrench and a ratchet to remove the bolt holding on the flywheel. That was the easy part. You will need a pulley puller to remove the flywheel. I went through 3 until I bought the one shown in the manual. It is the type that has bolts that you screw into the flywheel and then tighten down on the central bolt to try and remove it. I bought it at pep boys for $18. I was using a big adjustable wrench with a friend holding the wheel from moving with a giant pair of chanel locks. It required a ton of energy. The first pulley puller broke, I took it back and replaced it and got a ratchet breaker bar (20" long) and an 11/16 ratchet. I brought it back an hooked it up and went at it again, within 10 min the flywheel came lose. So maybe if I had the big ratchet at first it might have worked, or maybe the first one loses it quite a bit. I will say that when it come lose it comes off with some energy. The replacement of the starter clutch is so easy once you get the flywheel off. It is just 3 screws. Mine was really jacked up and definitely needed to be changed. Getting the flywheel back on is not an easy task, set it in place so so you can connect the bolt to hold it in. Then you have to tighten and hit with a mallet, you have to hold the center thread while you tighten the center bolt. Once you get it on you have to deal with getting the cover back on. I used a gasket sealant to hold the gasket to the cover and put the bolts threw it , once I got a couple threaded it was easy from that point. I would definitely say this is a two man job, I couldn't have done it without my friend.

[Flyinfool]

I love flywheel pulling stories, There are a few. I had my own.

 

I think you missed a designed in feature on the flywheel. There is a hex boss that is there to put a big wrench on to hold the flywheel still while you tighten or loosen the center bolt and even while cranking on the puller for removal.

You just put on the wrench and rotate the flywheel around till the wrench hits the foot rest, now everything is solid while you work on tightening and loosening things that want to turn. This takes it back to an easy one man job.

That is also the hex that I used for turning over the engine when I did my Valve lash adjustments.

 

An electric impact does not stand a chance, even my professional grad air impact did not stand a chance even when I cranked the air up to 150psi, I used the 24" breaker bar with another 2 foot piece of pipe on it to get enough force on the puller to POP the flywheel loose.

 

The good news is that once you get it off the first time, it will never be as hard to get off again. The factory must torque that thing down to about a million LB/FT of torque. Someone also told me that the factory puts bearing retainer on the taper, but I saw no sign of that when I took mine apart.

 

Your getting closer to ride time.

[mbova]

That's good info. My goal is to have it ready for rolling thunder. I have 31 days. Rolling thunder is thousands of motorcycle that gather at the pentagon and ride to the Vietnam memorial on the Sunday before Memorial Day.