The starter on my 1996 Road King went out on me this past Saturday. As luck would have it my local independent shop is closed for the week. Went to Harley and couldn't quite stomach $320.00 plus tax for another stock starter, so I ordered an Ultima 1.4kw.

I have removed the 2 flange bolts that hold the starter into the primary, but the unit will not budge. Is there another bolt to remove that I ammissing?? Tried using some gentle prying pressure to see if if was just "sealed" onto the primary but no luck.

Help. Bike is down. No start, no ride.

Thanks in advance,
BK

 

I'm thinking you need to buy a shop manual for this job.
There is a nut on the inside of the primary that has to be removed from the inside to do this job.
You could ahve bought the parts to re-build your starter for much less than the new ultima and would ahve money left over to buy the shop manual as well.
Just my .02 worth today.
Good Luck.
Rob
Then Again you prolly have this re and re'd by now.... I hope

 

Can't rebuild what I can't remove, and I'm not an electrician anyway. The new Ultima cost me $150.00 to the door. Harley in Florida says they rebuilt the starter already so apparently something wasn't right. Would be senseless to rebuild again and hope I corrected the mistake only to have it fail again.

Ordered a service manual yesterday. The section on removal of the starter says to do everything that I had already done, so it wasn't a massive amount of help.

Had removed both flange bolts and the jackshaft bolt. Still no movement. Bike is now at the shop, hopefully they can figure out the problem. It has me baffled.

BK

 

FYI You can take the starter to any alternator/regulator rebuild shop. When I had it done they told me that the parts are readily available and it only cost around 60 or so

 

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the responses. Got the local independent shop to install the Ultima 1.4kw unit. Works great and spins the engine over nicely.Has more torque than the stock starter but not so much that it requires larger cables or a larger battery.

The previous owner told me thatafter raising the compression (new pistons, milled heads) he started having starter probelms. He went thru 3 rebuilt stock units, then the HD dealer where I bought it says they rebuilt it again. Hopefully this higher torque starter will cure this problem.

Thanks again,
BK