Starter clutch
 

my GZ brake down today the gear for the starter clutch brake
some pictures of the damage

Re: Starter clutch
 

This may be a first for the forum. Can't ever remember any other rider having this problem.

Re: Starter clutch
 

the three bolts holding the starter clutch became loose
dealer want $260 for the parts

Re: Starter clutch
 

That is a problem on some of the Kawasaki's.On reassembly make sure you use LocTite On the 3 bolts. :) :2tup:

Re: Starter clutch
 

They want $260 for parts alone? You can buy the whole assembly yourself for $144.

http://www.ronayers.com/Fiche/TypeID/26 ... ER_CLUTCH_

Thank you for posting these pics. It's a surprising failure that I agree we haven't seen on here before.
It should be easy enough to repair once you get the parts in.

Re: Starter clutch
 

quality control

Re: Starter clutch
 

May be a combo of quality control and age of the bike. How many times has the bike been started in 11 years.

Re: Starter clutch
 

It only have 4000 Mi.

Re: Starter clutch
 

Ouch, that is poor reliability.

Re: Starter clutch
 

I hate to be just getting to this now since apparently I'm finally not the only person I've ever heard of who had a GZ250 starter clutch explode. About 8 years ago I was asking around about this problem, because my 1999 GZ250 had just had its starter clutch do the same thing. The bike had 2,000 miles on it at the time, in mint condition. When mine went out, it didn't shatter the gear or anything on the starter clutch, but it took out parts of the left side of the crankcase, including an oil passage, which I had to weld back together. The three starter clutch bolts had backed out. That's it. Then boom.

Nobody knew anything about it. I consider that pretty damn strange considering a quick ebay search shows there are starter clutch rebuild kids for damn near anything (read on), so surely these things wear out, get replaced, and every once in a while the bolts work their way free. Strangely you can find the rebuild kits for everything...except the GZ250. I find that baffling considering the GZ uses what appear to be identical parts as any Honda/Kawasaki/Yamaha for the springs, pins, and rollers for the starter clutch. Sure the size may vary but the design is a dead ringer.

Ever since then I've had a starter clutch that slips a lot and I have to blip the starter to get it to finally grab. I put shims in for the springs and that helped it for a few weeks, then it went right back to slipping again. I've dealt with this for nearly 10,000 miles.