DR650 Starter "Crow" Quick Fix

The starters on Suzuki DR650s often start making a loud "crow" or "squawk" sound when they get a few thousand miles on them. My 2001 DR650SE with just shy of 40K miles on the clock had gotten to the point that it nearly always "crowed" on cold starts and would sometimes even let one rip on a hot start. It seems the consensus on the ThumperTalk DR forum is that the right end bushing in the starter gets dry and when worn a bit galls and causes the noise. Several people have posted there that disassembly of the starter and lubing of that bushing cures the problem. Okay, I'll buy that; but, what a PITA for just that very irritating but mostly harmless noise. You'd have to remove the headpipe, the clutch cable, the cam chain tensioner, the bash plate, the left side engine covers and then finally the starter itself which then has to be disassembled completely also. Then you have to clean, lube and reassemble everything. All that would take at least half a day and mostly likely several new gaskets and o-rings to accomplish. There had to be an easier way.

Admittedly this is hardly an elegant solution but I'm a pragmatic kind of guy and this quick and dirty solution worked for me. For me, beauty is as beauty does. I did have the advantage of having taken one of these Mitsuba starters apart in the past so I pretty much knew what it looked liked on the inside before I started. I wasn't afraid of ruining the starter but I'm sure that's possible. All that said, this is a pretty easy fix and takes less than an hour but proceed at your own risk.

The problem is the bushing is dry, right. So, the idea here is to lube it without taking everything apart. You don't have to remove ANYTHING to do this procedure. In a nutshell, all I did was drill a small hole in the bushing end of the starter housing, lube the bushing and then seal it back up.

I drilled the hole as shown in the photo below exposing the end of the armature and bushing. To minimize drill filings inside the starter I coated the tip of the drill bit with thick grease that "collects" most of the filings.

5/32" hole in starter case

Teflon lubricant and straw from WD-40 can

I gave the lubricant choice some thought and eventually decided that, rather than petroleum-based oil or grease, I would use a dry Teflon lubricant made by Dupont. This stuff goes on as a water thin liquid but then drys to a grease-like consistency. My thinking was that it would penetrate the bushing and then dry to a super slick film. I wanted the lubricant actually ON the armature and bushing rather than all over everything else so I used the "straw" from a can of WD-40 to direct it inside the hole. The straw didn't actually fit into the Teflon package tip but I was able to hold it in place well enough to squirt a small quantity of lubricant directly on the armature.