Pinion Gear and Ring Gear Issues

[SofaKing]

2003 XL1200C came in with crank shaft nut off the threads, chewed up ring gear, and drive dogs on mainshaft first gear knocked off (no 4th gear), and a smoked starter.
Replaced starter, mainshaft and countershaft 1st's, and put a new weld-on ring gear. Now I'm chewing up ring gears (4) like there's no tomorrow. It starts good at first but in a week or two the customer calls with another chewed up ring gear. I cut the old one off and weld a new one on. I test drive it for a day and everything's perfect but a week later customer has it chewed up again. the aftermarket ring is V-twin and very poor quality(soft) and I've checked the tooth depth and it is not all the way seated in other gear but is well past halfway meshed (I heard that a paperclip was a good feeler gauge for this). My question is How do I get this to stop? Is the pinion gear on the aftermarket starter too small? Is the inner primary letting the starter sag? Is the ring gear's teeth too soft? I don't think the basket(mainshaft) is allowing this. How do I get the teeth to mesh as deep as a paperclip? 5th ring gear is going on soon but not until I got this diagnosed. Does anybody make a decent ring gear for this bike cause compared to stock this V-twin Ring Gear $100 a pop is absolute crap. I'm going to compare Pinion gears from stock starter tomorrow to see if they're different in any way.

 

[jamesreid]

2003 XL1200C came in with crank shaft nut off the threads, chewed up ring gear, and drive dogs on mainshaft first gear knocked off (no 4th gear), and a smoked starter.
Replaced starter, mainshaft and countershaft 1st's, and put a new weld-on ring gear. Now I'm chewing up ring gears (4) like there's no tomorrow. It starts good at first but in a week or two the customer calls with another chewed up ring gear. I cut the old one off and weld a new one on. I test drive it for a day and everything's perfect but a week later customer has it chewed up again. the aftermarket ring is V-twin and very poor quality(soft) and I've checked the tooth depth and it is not all the way seated in other gear but is well past halfway meshed (I heard that a paperclip was a good feeler gauge for this). My question is How do I get this to stop? Is the pinion gear on the aftermarket starter too small? Is the inner primary letting the starter sag? Is the ring gear's teeth too soft? I don't think the basket(mainshaft) is allowing this. How do I get the teeth to mesh as deep as a paperclip? 5th ring gear is going on soon but not until I got this diagnosed. Does anybody make a decent ring gear for this bike cause compared to stock this V-twin Ring Gear $100 a pop is absolute crap. I'm going to compare Pinion gears from stock starter tomorrow to see if they're different in any way. geometry dash lite

I think you should check if the starter is mounted securely and if there's any sagging. Misalignment can cause poor engagement between the pinion and ring gear.

 

[wylde]

2003 XL1200C came in with crank shaft nut off the threads, chewed up ring gear, and drive dogs on mainshaft first gear knocked off (no 4th gear), and a smoked starter.
Replaced starter, mainshaft and countershaft 1st's, and put a new weld-on ring gear. Now I'm chewing up ring gears (4) like there's no tomorrow. It starts good at first but in a week or two the customer calls with another chewed up ring gear. I cut the old one off and weld a new one on. I test drive it for a day and everything's perfect but a week later customer has it chewed up again. the aftermarket ring is V-twin and very poor quality(soft) and I've checked the tooth depth and it is not all the way seated in other gear but is well past halfway meshed (I heard that a paperclip was a good feeler gauge for this). My question is How do I get this to stop? Is the pinion gear on the aftermarket starter too small? Is the inner primary letting the starter sag? Is the ring gear's teeth too soft? I don't think the basket(mainshaft) is allowing this. How do I get the teeth to mesh as deep as a paperclip? 5th ring gear is going on soon but not until I got this diagnosed. Does anybody make a decent ring gear for this bike cause compared to stock this V-twin Ring Gear $100 a pop is absolute crap. I'm going to compare Pinion gears from stock starter tomorrow to see if they're different in any way.

you are a technician?

 

[joel]

I think cleaning all related gears with brake clean then thin coat of assembly lube followed by manually rotating to get a good look at the position and depth of the teeth from all related to the repeated failure gears. Followed by doing the same with starter drive gear providing short power burst from solenoid to engage the starter. Inspection of the teeth followed by platigauge on the suspected tight / misaligned gears.
Inspection of the starter nose bushing and replacement if needed.
This may help determine what is out of align or too tight.