Export thread

Is there an inherent design flaw with these motors? Has had anyone had one last more than a month? The problem is the pinion gear does not move up the worm gear to engage the flywheel. I have 2 batteries that each measure 12.5 volts. The output of the battery charger measures 14v. So, I don't think the batteries or the charger is the issue? Is there an aftermarket motor available that actually works and stay's working?

http://cdn.powerequipment.honda.com/pe/pdf/manuals/31VH7H20.pdf have you checked fuse? see page 52. If you have had mower a couple years valves need to be adjusted, engine cold, specs. in manual.

http://cssportal.css-club.net/honda/PowerProducts/contents/1071012en-us_.pdf

you will need 0.15mm & 0.20mm feeler gauge.

New member. Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd add to this unanswered/unresolved post found thru a search.

I bought an HRX217K2HMA new in April 2010. Believe it or not, I was still running the original supplied battery until last fall (October 2017) thru careful recharging (never more than 18 hours), indoor storage thru the winter, occasional top-off, etc. The date code was 2009. It served me well, but once it got cold the starter was running so slow that it would not reliably extend the "Bendix drive' and engage the flywheel.

Last week I finally ordered a pair of 6v batteries (found them cheap, glued them together, transferred the wiring harness, etc.). The base voltage after charging was 1.5v higher than the old battery, so I figured we'd be good to go. No such luck. The starter motor sounds horribly grindy and the pinion gear doesn't engage the flywheel.

A little history: At year 4+, my Honda dealer replaced the starter under warranty due to a similar issue. Slow rotation, grinding sounds and no engagement - on either my battery or a jumper boost. They tried to sell me a battery then, but the new starter cranked like crazy for the next 3 years.

So here we are again.... How hard is it to replace myself? The original part number was 31200-Z0L-821. I've been told that's been replace by -822. Wonder if there has been any design improvement? Has anyone had any luck with rebuilding one of these units? Any recommended lube for the motor bearings and pinion gear that will allow it to slide freely but not stick?

The mower has never been out in the rain. Garage or dry shed storage.

Thanks in advance!

Well, I'm a bit disappointed that nobody was up to adding any words of wisdom before I took on this task, but I decided to just jump in last night.

Getting the cover off is way harder than it should be, as the 10mm top nuts are on so tight to the little bushings that keep the plastic from being crushed that the studs instead unscrew from the block below. No biggie, except that the front one also holds one side of the magneto in place. I was able to remove two of the three studs from the cover (one just wouldn't budge, and the plastic was deforming... time to quit and just use it as is). The air gap to the flywheel seemed to be around 0.010-0.012, so I reseated that stud with a feeler gauge in place rather than just blindly by way of the top cover nut.

There's plenty of slack on the fuel line so no need to drain the tank. Just lift the recoil starter / cover / gas tank assembly straight up and swing it off to the side. As long as you are below a quarter tank or so, there was zero loss and no fuel odor.

Two 10mm bolts, a zip tie, two #2 Phillips ground screws and the +12v spade terminal connect on the bottom hold the starter assembly in place. A little jockeying (I thought for a second that I'd have to remove either the muffler or the oil dipstick tube to get it out, but only the dipstick itself needed to be pulled to make that extra few mm of room to get it out.

I bench tested it, and sure enough it ran slow, sounded like marbles in a can, and the pinion would not rise.

Cleaned it externally, and began disassembly.

It's a gear reduction starter. That multiplies torque (making it possible to run with such a small battery), but the reduce RPM means it has to be well lubed to enable the pinion to track the worm gear against the upper spring.

With the "Bendix / gear" assembly off the motor (4mm hex Allen?), the motor on it's own ran quiet and strong. Great. Set that aside - don't mess with what's running well! Once a long time ago I had to do brushes on an abused lawn tractor, and that wasn't fun....

Sure enough, the upper section was pretty trashed. Grit and lack of lube had scored bearing surfaces, but it polished up better than expected. A touch of light grease on bearings and gears, a very light oil (Kroil and a dab of TriFlow - applied then wiped off most) on the pinion slide shaft and worm gear, and it moved like new. Reassembly and further bench testing showed that from a dead stop the pinion would now move about 2/3 of the way up towards the upper rubber bumper. Not as high as I would have liked, but enough to engage the flywheel ring gear.

Reassembled and tested. Several painless starts last night, and again early this morning. It looks to be good to go for another few years! Fingers crossed....

I did take pictures, but it doesn't sound like there's enough interest in this thread to warrant making an annotated service procedure out of it.

My experience with these is that you have to have a good battery and it has to be fully charge. You should charge the battery for 24 hours before trying to start it. It the battery is good the starter should work. Your battery can have 12 plus volts and still not have the amps to make the starter engage and turn the engine. Hope this helps.

If the starter is in good working order, all wiring is good with clean, low resistance connections, etc., then yes, a good battery should do the trick. But in my experience, these starter motors aren't up to the job long term. Fortunately, restoring the starter bearings to good health wasn't too horrible an experience, and it continues to work well since my servicing. I'm thinking that pulling it off every 2-3 years for a cleaning and lube will just become part of my service routine. An hour of my time is certainly better than replacing a $100 part!

Rednec said:

My experience with these is that you have to have a good battery and it has to be fully charge. You should charge the battery for 24 hours before trying to start it. It the battery is good the starter should work. Your battery can have 12 plus volts and still not have the amps to make the starter engage and turn the engine. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

The forum is not Feaces Book so people are not compelled to answer posts in 3.5 nanno seconds.
Some pictures would have been good but at least you did post the end results.
Electric start mowers are not all that common down here, USA could be different.
Most of the regular posters do not post what they do not know and wil let a post like yours sit for a day or so then if there has been no answer, look up your mower ( if you have supplied enough information to do so ) and make a diagnosis.
I rather like dry Tri-Flow and it is good to know you can get the product over there under the same name as I have recommended it a few times.IT is particularly good with the multi stranded throttle cables Honda has a habit of using and the wheels on the self propelled.
Your description is typical of all these mowers and yes it is always the coil mount stud that pulls out.
A single drop of Blue or Green locktite will fix that problem and a dab of anti sieze on the other end of the stud work wonders.
You will probably find a lip on the spiral on then Bendix which is stopping the full travel of the pinion and a bit of Dremmel work to polish the lip off works wonders as well.
I fit Hawker Cyclon spiral cell batteries to electric start push mowers as they tend not to self discharge and will hold full voltage under quite heavy loads.

In my real job I do deal with nano, pico and femto second timing (development of next generation microchip technology), so to me a few days (or in this case nearly two months) is an eternity! And that's unfortunately the problem with a forum this specialized. I'm a moderator on one of the AutoGuide Toyota forums, and the volume there is simply hard to keep up with. But I digress.... Restoring my Honda to heath was a worthy evening spent in my home workshop. I ran by intuition, and my gut reaction to stumbling blocks served me well. Maybe I'll create that "How To" as I do have some photos when I get a few nanoseconds to spare!

I'm pleasantly surprised that the starter seems to be working better and engaging faster every time I use it. We are getting just the right consistency of lubricant in just the right places with continued power-ups. I've made converts out of the antique sewing machine (my wife's hobby) and other communities with Tri-Flow. Every bike store in the USA sells it, which is where I discovered it many years ago.

Prices on batteries for these mowers are all over the place. Right now there's a $39 (USD including shipping) deal at Amazon on the Enersys-Hawker-Cyclon-0819-0016-Battery. Back in May they were going for $65 (generic) to $85 (with the Honda harness). Which is why I went with the 'build my own' approach of buying two 6v Cyclon units at $17 a piece and gluing them together.

This is basically a "fix it" forum.
people come her with a problem, get a solution ( hopefully ) then repair their mower ( hopefully ) and vanish off the system ( unfortunately ).
Current model working lawn mowers are not a big hobby passion like cars tend to be
Vintage mowers are a different thing where lots of people check the forum daily if not many times a day.
I like may use it as a tool for learning about problems that I might see come into my workshop .
It is very valuable to me as I am independent so do not get all of the service updates that authorised dealers do.

Sorry that no one was able to offer you any assistance.
OTOH you also did not get 20 pages of tripe from people who had no idea what they are talking about, as is found on a lot of other forums.
I had a problem with a Mitsubishi van that I sought help with via several forums and all of the responses were total trash, well meaning perhaps but trash just the same.

I still believe you will see a wear lip on the spiral plus some corrosion that continual use will tend to polish over

I though I'd post an update on my Starter/Battery experience on my Honda HRX217HMA mower.

Here it is now May 2022, and the old beast is 12 years old and burning a bit of oil. After consideration to an engine rebuild/replacement I found a good (good is a relative term in this market!) deal on a brand new HRX217K6HZA and decided to treat myself. I cleaned up the old unit and will put it up for sale to help defray the cost of the new mower. Hopefully the mildly updated model (slightly larger engine, continuous battery recharging) will hold up as well as the original.

My replacement homemade twin 6v battery is now 4 years old and running strong. So 8 seasons on the battery #1, 4 so far on the second. But I have had to service the starter every two years or so. Originally in 2018, again in 2020 and again last week. Same issue: a build up of varnish/crud that slows the gear reduction & 'bendix drive' rise enough that it often missing engaging the flywheel tooth ring. A good cleaning and light lubrication does the job and restored positive engagement. We'll see if the new mower suffers from the same malady.

I also had to sleeve the handle with 5 inches of 3/4" EMT (a steel tube product used for electrical installations in North America), as it broke at the folding pivot point on both sides (right side in 2019, left side in 2021). I was going to simply replace the handle, but between part cost and my labor to transfer the upper mechanicals, it was easier to just do a repair.

And today, less than 24 hours after listing it on Facebook Marketplace I sold the old mower for about 25% of what it cost to buy my new one! Not a bad return on a 12 year old machine. Granted, it looked great and ran well, but I just didn't want to keep working on it. The net cost of the new one with a fresh 5 year warranty made it worth the trouble.