Rebuilding a Honda FL350 Starter

The following pictures and descriptions are my attempt to help others rebuild the starter from a FL350. Honda knew that there was a problem with the counterbalancer oil migrating through the vent hole in the case into the electric starter, causing premature wear and failure. Honda addressed this problem with the release of a service bulletin. Randy Bridgewater from Odyssey salvage  has devised a fix to this problem which can be seen at  starter fix . Instead of drilling into the motor case to attach the new vent line I am going to use the counter balancer fill cap as the place to vent the case. I will do essentially the same thing that Randy has done EXCEPT, I will drill the hole in the fill cap instead of the case.

You are responsible for getting  the starter out of your buggy! The manual goes over the procedure, but since I knew I was going to pull the engine, getting the starter out was easy (It only took an hour or so to get the engine out, and I only bled once). Once you get the starter out be ready for a surprise. I estimate that in the end I cleaned close to 4 ounces of oil out of my starter.

This is the starter after I got it off the engine and ready for disassembly.

The other side. Notice how corroded the terminal bolt is!

End cap is now off. You have to remove the 2 long screws to get the case apart. As you disassemble the motor it is imperative that you keep track of where the washers go! Take pictures like I did if that helps you keep track of things.

Look at all that oil! That is after I let it sit on end overnight to drain.

More oil! There is a press fit bearing on the left end of the armature. The rebuild kit comes with a new sealed bearing. The only thing I could find to get the bearing off of the shaft was an automotive type valve spring compressor (it was the only thing that had fingers small enough to get under the bearing without touching the wires). I just used a 15 or 16 mm deepwell socket to TAP the new bearing into place.

This is a picture of the armature after it was cleaned and the commutator (shiny copper looking piece on the right side) was OD ground at a local machine shop. There was a little bit of copper left in the grooves between the plates and I cleaned this up with a small grinding disk on the dremel. Be very careful to keep from damaging the coating on the wires of the armature. You will also need to check for continuity between each of the commutator plates. There should NOT be continuity between the commutator and the armature shaft.

This is after everything has been cleaned and bead blasted. The rebuild kit I got from http://www.electricmotorsvc.com Bill had the kit in stock, and 2 days later it was on my doorstep. (The part # of the kit is RBK-5 Mitsuba 4 Brush)

This a picture of the terminal brush set. I have released the springs from the back of the brush housing so that I wouldn't have to hold the brushes in place while I tried to get the armature into the motor housing. Note the terminal at the top of the picture, I found it easiest to go ahead and secure it the motor housing before trying to set the brush plate in place. There are fiber washers and an o-ring insulate the terminal bolt from the motor housing. Here you need to check continuity again. There should be continuity between the terminal bolt at the top of the picture and the brushes at the 4 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions. If you have continuity anywhere else you need to look at where you may be grounded. There will NOT be continuity between the 4 and 10 o'clock brushes and the brushes at the 7 and 1 o'clock positions, nor will the 7 and 1 o'clock brushes have continuity to the terminal bolt.

The armature is all set in the housing.

The brush springs have now been set to the back of the brushes where they are supposed to go.

I just put a little dab of grease into the bushings that the shaft rides in.

This is where the pin in the next picture goes.

See the pin on the brush plate (right in front of the yellow wire). This is an alignment pin that goes into the groove in the picture above. At this point if you are checking for continuity there is going to be continuity between everything. This is simply showing that there is a compete circuit in your starter motor.

This is it all back together. See the alignment marks on the housing just above the long screw that hold the motor together.

I bench tested the starter using a 12 volt battery and a set of jumper cables. After connecting the cables to the battery (red to + and black to -) I connected the red clamp to the starter terminal bolt with touching any other part of the motor! Hold the starter securely to the workbench and clamp the black cable to one of the bolts on the right side of the picture above. Watch that sucker spin! Only run the starter a few seconds before you shut if off (unclamp the cable) or you will damage or ruin your newly rebuilt starter.