My friends and myself have had (emphasis on HAD) the starter motor grinding problems for quite awhile like the rest of you. It just has to be in the starter motor right...WRONG! Every time we have the dealer check the starter motor, ring gear and pinion starter gear, there is never any damage; and w/o damage, the MoCo won't pay! I know some of you have cured the problem with a new starter, but for those who still have grinding, here's what "Tech Services" finally suggested and it WORKED on my bike and on the bikes of other friends of mine.
There are two problems that contribute to the noise. First is the lean condition that the MoCo uses to meet EPA. The engine sometimes wants to kick back causing the compensator pulley to ratchet; that's the grinding sound you hear, it's not the starter or the gears. I got rid of 95% of the grinding with a SERT. Even with a proper tune, I still had the noise occasionally until I raised the "Cranking Fuel" map to 17.9 from 64 to 160 Deg C. The engine no longer wanted to kick back and most of the noise was gone, but not all.
Second, Tech Services suggested using an additional spring in the compensator pulley. There is room for it, and if you think about it, a weak compensator will ratchet. The MoCo now makes a heavy duty compensator in the SE part of the accessory book. Anyway, the MoCo sent an additional spring, paid for the install and now the noise is completely gone. On a friends bike that's not a 110, but a 103 stage II with the 255 cams and no comp. releases (210 static comp), the spring eliminated his noise completely also.
The springs have no part number, so tech services has been pulling them from the line and sending them out as needed. I'm not the first, so I'm a little surprised that no one else has posted this info yet. Talk to your dealer and have them call tech services with the above information. They will probably ask your tech to measure your existing spring height for spec. before sending an additional spring.
If you want to bypass your dealer altogether, order a heavy duty pulley (#40274-08) and install it yourself.
I've just been following this thread and while reading this I remember being at a bike show over a year ago with the old FLH. At that show there were about 7 or 8 county police on bikes. They are the 103" and just one of them had had tons of issues with his starter grinding and so forth. I heard him start it one time and it sounded like the whole thing would just fall apart. I talked to him and he had had 3 starters put in already and each time the problem went away for a while, but then returned. He was still having issues and I haven't seen him since. The other bikes had no issues and they were all the same year and size motors.
First of all I'm not arguing the fact that your service department was directed to this from Tech Services, but I have a problem understanding their reasoning to do this. So again, I just saying.... Why?
As far as suggesting a SERT and remap along with an additional spring in the compensator pack, I can't believe that HD would come out and say this is what you need to do. They would be opening themselves up for one hell of a law suit over just the EPA part of that suggestion, especially as the manufacturer of the bike.
With this issue being more than just an isolated occurrence, seems like several others here have had it too, I can't see how you can "tune" the problem away with an illegal add-on device authorized by the manufacturer.
As far as adding the extra spring in the compensator pack, that will tighten up the "cam" in the compensator and allow more shock to get back to the trans and eventually to the rider. I'm sure some scenarios will make this issue worse, parking lot or low rpm acceleration etc. This can't be good for things, looking at it from the company's perspective. The compensators are designed in such a way that they will not go past the cam points as engineered and with the extra spring it may not be working much at all.
This whole thing would be like Chevy telling a dealer that's having injection issues with a new Vette to just rip off the injection and go to the "Off Road Performance Parts" catalog and bolt on an LS1 4-bbl intake and a Holley 750 double pumper. Yes, it might take care of the injection issue, but truly against EPA rules etc. And what warranty implications long term this would have. First off lots of people run the Vette with stock injection without issues, so if the majority of them run great, and believe me they do, why not find out what the problem is and fix it?
I think I'm done now and I didn't mean any disrespect on your post, just that having them tell a dealer to use "Off Road" parts to fix a problem. There has to be an answer to the problem. Boy, that sounds just like, there has to be an answer to the headgasket issue, right?
Sorry for rambling..... Again!!!!!
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Topic: Engine grinds when starting - HELP!!!! (Read 16608 times)