I have a John Deere with a Kawasaki FB460V and there have been issues with the starter engaging with the flywheel. Seemed to get worse over the past year.
When you turn the key, you'll get a solid "thunk" as the bendix gear (?) spins up to engage the flywheel, but then it doesn't seem to keep spinning enough to actually rise into the teeth. My first thought was that the sound was just the solenoid and that the starter moter had a bad winding, so I thought a new starter would fix this, but it's exactly the same. After looking closely at it during starting, I think that the starter gear is just smacking into the underside of the flywheel as it spins up. This will happen a number of times, and then all of a sudden it will catch and life is good.
Both the starter gear and flywheel were very dry, so today I put a lot of grease on the bendix gear to see if that would help it slide into the flywheel teeth, and that seemed to help, but I still got a few thunks before it worked.
I'm wondering if the gear shape is a problem, not enough slope in the upper face perhaps to slide into the flywheel gear? The new starter gear had much less relief than the old one... but the old one could have just been worn.
Hi Mark,
It's a 160.
However, I think I've resolved the problem by installing a starter assist relay. Seems that a number of folks have trouble with the long wire runs & safety interrupts causing a voltage drop in the starter circuit. I had an old marine solenoid switch laying around and installed it today and the problem vanished. Fingers crossed.
Thanks for getting in touch, I was just coming on to report this when I saw your reply.
Tom
