I finally got my 350 together for a test run after a complete Engine rebuild. It was the first time I have ever heard that bad larry run, and it was a beautiful thing. The biggest obstacle I had in getting it together was the apparent mouse city that was constructed in my exhaust. Holy hell was that a pain to remove! Unfortunately, in my zest to get this thing going, I neglected to take care of some routine stuff like replacing the pull cord, which broke before I could take the thing for a first ride, and making sure the starter was functioning. I quickly learned that it wasn't functioning when I hit the starter button and there was some serious arcing on the relay. Upon removing the Engine and starter, this is what I find:






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Rebuilding may be an exercise in futility, but I'll give it hell anyway.





so I have heart paper towels, big deal!

love the hearts

Is that rust in the pics? That starter goes well beyond the usual gunky mess.

You could probably sell your starter parts on Ebay as RMS Titanic artifacts found at the wreck site

Wow... never seen one that bad!

Yeah there is a ton of rust, and under that is a nice layer of oily greasy stuff. That Titanic idea isn't half bad! It probably isn't worth trying to salvage, but I'll clean it up and see what can be done.

Well I got the thing cleaned up and after a first fail attempt, she's running strong. Got the rebuild kit off ebay. The first attempt, got it all together and hooked it up to the battery and she sparked like crazy. Long story short, it turns out the laquer on each pole of the armature was chipping off in some places, so I suspect it was shorting on the casing. I coated it with polyurethane, put it back together and now its running strong. Although, now that I'm thinking of it, there shouldn't be any current to the poles of the armature unless some of the copper wire has shorted to it? I guess I don't know what the hell happened, be its working now!