starter issues and questions

Hey guys, sorry its been so long. Not to much KZ related stuff during this winter for me. Today, i finally decided to go and get some work done on my 81' KZ1000LTD. I borrowed a Vance and Hines 4-1 from this guy i know who owns a 81' CSR1000. i did this because my crossover pipe broke off on my stock exhaust and i haven't welded it back together yet. I also bought a starter for my 1000 last year in the fall but never got around to putting it in. It was used but when he hooked it up to a battery, it almost jumped out of his hand:D so i thought it was good. paid a whole 50 bucks for it. I also cleaned my fuse box and pinched the tabs closer together to try and fix the de-soldering problem i was having last year. Today, i went and put in my fuse box, put in my new starter, popped some fuses in the box, put my battery in, and gave the start button a nice firm push. I let it crank about 3 times and said it was good to go. I then put on my gas tank, dumped some gas in, set it to prime, pulled out the choke, and hit the button again. It cranked about 2 times fast, crank the 3rd time slow, and then took a big ol' shit. complete with smoke and burnt electrical smell..... The smoke came from around the starter area so i decided to pull it out again. At first i thought i hooked up the solenoid backwards or something.. if thats even possible. Then i took a look at the orange insulator on the positive post on the starter motor. it looked black around the edges and it was scorching hot all around it. so i figured it was burned already when the guy showed me it worked and when i wiggled the post around trying to bolt on the lead, i may have crushed the burnt areas on the insulator. I took it home and pulled it apart. the armature doesn't look burnt. Still plenty of metal left on the brushes, and the bushings are at a near mirror finish on the inside. I already bought a kit on ebay for my last starter but the bushings didn't fit. i figure ill just use the insulators and the new brushes out of the kit and put everything back together. One question, is there any way to hook up the solenoid backwards? I know both leads, going in and coming out, are positive but can you switch the wires around without any trouble? The solenoid is not labeled so i don't know and i don't wanna fry anything when i put in my rebuilt starter.

Thanks Guys,
KT

No, you can't hook the solenoid up backwards.

The solenoid is just a very basic relay, a coil with an anchor inside. When you push the start button current flows through the coil windings causing the anchor to move (lift). Attached to the top of the anchor there's a metal plate, when the anchor lifts the plate bridges the two large posts on the solenoid allowing current to flow from the battery to the starter, just as if you bridged the large nuts with a screwdriver.

When you release the start button there's no current flowing through the coil, the anchor will sink back interrupting the current flow from the battery to the starter and the starter will stop spinning.

In short, it doesn't matter which of the big posts connects to the battery and which connects to the starter.

As a side note, don't know for certain about the 1000s, but on my 650 the solenoid coil wires (the two small ones) are black and red/yellow - for whatever reason the black solenoid wire connects to the black wire coming from the start button (through the clutch switch) and the red/yellow connects to ground, illogical as it may seem.

I was told that it doesn't matter how you connect these wires either, but that is easily tested: connect the black solenoid wire to +12V and the red/yellow to - (ground), if you see continuity between the big posts you're good, if not reverse the black and red/yellow.

Does the starter motor need any grease/lubricant around the bushings? I put he motor back together and bench tested it and it works great but I'm wondering if I should lubricate the bushings before installation. Thanks for that last reply.

Thanks guys,
KT