# electric start on 42010, intermittet mesh/clash



## joea (Feb 7, 2015)

Have intermittent AC starter motor. After resorting to recoil last winter dug into it now.


Removed enough to move the engine shroud away enough to see the flywheel and pinion. Both seem in good shape.


Applied power to the motor and, sure enough, it engaged and turned the engine over. Good planning on my part to have disconnected the spark plug.


But, on second try, the pinon extended properly, but did not engaged the flywheel teeth, instead, it deflected enough to simply spin around making some annoying noise while it skated over the flywheel teeth.


This is an "after market" starter from "DB Electric" or something like that. I have replaced the starter pinion with a kit I got from Amazon or Ebay, I guess. Also, I have another started I tried, same provider, with similar intermittent function. 



I notice there is a lot of "play" in the pinon as it extends out, manually, which, I guess, is to assist in allowing it to mesh with the flywheel teeth. 



Suggestions?


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## Terry Qlymchuk (Dec 8, 2019)

I had a similar problem a few years ago. It was the OEM starter on my machine.
I found it was the mounting bolts on the starter that had become loose after years of use.
One of the bolt holes had even become slightly enlarged so the bolts would not tighten properly.

I was able to rebuild the damaged hole on the mounting block with some JB Weld. After a day or two, I re-tapped the hole and it's been working great for me. The other holes that were "ok", I put in some mid-duty threadlock. All's bee good ever since.


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