andy:

the starter may very well be at fault, but it is not uncommon for a
marginal battery, or possibly a bad ground, to cause this type of trouble.
see if a jump helps. sometimes a battery will pass the hydrometer test,
provide enough current for testing the lights and so on,  but has too much
internal resistance to provide full starting current. if engine cranks
over fast with a jump, the starter is probably not the culprit. a healthy
battery will read about 12.25 volts across its terminals without a load,
hardly go down turning the lights on, and stay above about 11 V while
cranking.

dan

On Mon, 3 May 2004 11:28:23 EDT, Andy Morse <AudibleA@AOL.COM> wrote:

>My 86 westy starter has been acting up, I did the whack it with a hammer
>trick that worked well for a while as did on my 71, then I installed a
starter
>relay that worked about 10 times (a few times I would turn the key and
there
>would be a 2 second pause before it would turn over) and now nothing but
juice at
>the starter, whackings not even working (no jokes please) So I'm figuring
it's
>time to get a starter.
>
>Thanks, Andy