Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Howdy,
With a new battery and on a charger the starter motor will only turn over about 1 revolution, then it just wines, not enough to get it started, no kick starter.
Could this be the pinion, it looks good and pops out to spin the gears.
The starter motor turns over fine when not under load.
piston is clean w/ new rings, tranny clean.

Any ideas? TIA

Smoked starter? Try lubing the thing the gear slides on with some 3in1 or wd40.

Thanks Kenny, it's all greased up good, had the starter tested and it's good and bought a good relay as well.

It will turn the motor but only for about 1 revolution and then it whirs and the same thing keeps happening.

Grease might slow it down to much.

The starter parts spin real easy and the engaging action seem to work fine, it just won't STAY engaged for more than a second.
Any other ideas?
TIA

Worn gears?

The gears look OK, local Honda shop doesn't have any parts to compare with.

hi, ive had the same problem with one of my scooters. I have two scooters and four starters now, but only one starter that works. it will start both scooters instantly, but none of the others will. one is just bad, the other two seem to spin fine, but when I bolt them up they will only spin about one revolution, then stop and whine, and will repeat this.

Today when I was taking these stupid things apart again trying to figure out what was wrong i noticed something, the shaft coming out of the good starter has 10 teeth on it, the others have 11. this definately seems like it could be causing this problem.

has anyone ever heard of this??? I cant find anything on this sight about the number of teeth on a starter but I'm wondering if they changed that sometime after 1984?

If anyone knows anything about this please enlighten me.

Sorry, never heard of that and my manual doesn't say, will check next time I have it out again, still same problem even with a new used Bendix/pinion

ive tried that too but still same problem. It seems like too many teeth would cause it to bind with the bendix gear, causing this problem we are having... but like you said I have never heard of this either and you would think more people would have experienced this problem if it were the case.

Looks like there are 2 different starters with the early Sprees being 10T.
Info from powersportspro.com.

1984/1985
Starter - 31200-GK8-003 - Motor Assy, Starter (10T)

Pinion Assy (the 'Bendix') 31209-GK8-008 Pinion Assy, Starter (65T)

----
1986/1987
Starter - 31210-GK8-782 -Motor unit, Starter

Pinion Assy, Starter 31209-GK8-781 (11T/63T)
----

So there's a difference in starter part and pinions.

Can you check the part numbers on your 10T and 11T starters and see if it matches up to the 1984-5 and 1986-7 starters?

s***, who wudda thunk it? seriously though, this was a very frustrating problem that I have been battling for the last couple months, buying two starters off of ebay and thinking they were junk... apparently they are just both 86/87 starters so I guess I need to find me an 86/87 starter pinion and see what happens.

The pinion/bendix I got from upsmale is a 11 tooth one??
It doesn't work either?
My Spree is a '84.

im pretty sure that is the case, you need an 84/85 pinion to go with your 10t starter... we are having the same problem amigo.

That's an odd one. They may still be interchangable... does the starter ring gear (part that attaches to the crankshaft) have different number of teeth for the years?