White flag

Haven't felt like posting much lately. I surrender. I admit defeat.

The last time I saw my bike, it had two problems. First is the starting problem. It would crank and not fire, blah blah, I detailed the problem on my web page. The second problem, which appears to have precipitated from the original starting problem, is that something shredded itself. There was a grinding sound and the starter would spin freely. I surmised it was either the starter motor spindle, starter motor gear, intermediate gear, timing gear, or (most likely) the starter clutch (aka sprag).

November 3 - I threw the bike in the back of my friend's truck and we tossed it out at the dealer.

Dealer called me a few days later. Diagnosis #1: He said TPS was way off. I had followed the correct procedure in resetting it, so I attribute the error in my laptop to ECU connection.

Pre-999 models had a movable TPS. You could loosen the screw and rotate it by hand, and get the voltage reading directly at the TPS. From the 999 on, the TPS is fixed, and can only be software reset. This necessitates the use of a laptop and VDST software (or a multi-trillion dollar DDS/Mathesis computer like the dealer has). That in itself isn't a problem, because I did buy the VDST software. But guess what. The bike's connector is serial. No modern laptop comes with a serial port. You must depend on a USB-serial adapter. So I bought the USB adapter specifically named by the VDST manufacturer (this is an absolute must because different brands have different degrees of compatibility; USB-serial adapters are very finicky). To make a long story short, connectivity still wasn't 100%, and even during the realtime diagnostics, connection was flaky. Although the baud & Hz can be software configured (yes, I did set it to the recommended values), the USB adapter still can't match the bizzare specs of a genuine serial port. I learned this the hard way. Fuck. Now if I ever want to use my VDST software, I basically have to lug my goddamn desktop PC (which does have a serial port) into the garage.

Anyway, about the dealer call. Diagnosis #2: The sprag was shredded, metal bits everywhere. He said they'd also remove the oil pan and flush the engine to get the shards out. All in all not too bad. Ultimately it's something a DIY brokanic like me could do, but you need a special tool to get the flywheel out. And I wasn't about to start improvising in my current state of mind.

But how could a "hard starting" problem lead to a sprag failure? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

No. Hard starting was ailment #1. Repeated failed start attempts resulted in the failed sprag, ailment #2.

But aren't starter clutches made to withstand many years of start cycles?

YES. But there's a catch. Straight from the factory manual, it says the starter clutch is lubricated with ENGINE OIL, not grease. What this means is that when everything is working fine, the bike should start on the first (or maybe second) attempt; the sprag then naturally gets lubed with the engine oil via mechanical action, no harm done. But with repeated failed attempts, the starter clutch is subjected to repeated start cycles WITH NO LUBRICATION. You know what happens next, and I learned this the hard way.