Hey everybody!  I've been lurking on the forum for a year now and have found it immensely helpful!!  I loaned my 07 Boulevard to my meth-head brother for a few months and had to pick up up last week when he went to start a long stretch in jail.  

Aside from having been laid over, a foot-peg replaced with a piece of steel, and some new scratches and dings... it wouldn't start and the problem I was having is 100% like this old thread.  He spray-painted the left cover and I don't think it worked after that based on the brand new oil change.

When trying to start it it just made a clicking sound.  I replaced the battery, tested the solenoid, and cleaned and tested the starter per the manual with a voltmeter.  It sounds like the starter is not engaging.

I verified the gear connected to the starter WILL spin in one direction.  According to this post a washer or some "clip" (not pictured in the Clymer manual) could be causing this issue.  

Can someone tell me if anything looks wrong here?

Thanks so much for the photo reply dude!  I finally got the new stator cover gasket, oil filter, oil and moved the washer from the right side to the left, when I tried to crank it it did this: http://youtu.be/3TfWR54Eka4. That's more noise than it was making when the washer was on the right, then it would only make the starter hum or just click. Any idea what could be going on now?

Thanks a lot for the reply Steve, the tip about the brush plate was terrific.  When it wasn't starting we cleaned the starter out, and must not have put it back together correctly.  After turning the brush plate in the starter IT TRIED TO CRANK!!, but the battery was SMOKING like crazy and the terminals on the battery were really hot.  The battery is brand new, and it smoked even harder when we hooked it up to a truck.  This is the 3rd battery we've tried in it.

Here's another video: https://youtu.be/gXHbJ66veYk

The horn sounded kinda weak.  I read it could be a grounding issue so we made an artificial ground with some jumper cables to the battery but it did the same thing.  We're thinking the starter is the issue?

That means you're pulling WAY too much current.  Something is shorting somewhere.

It's very bad for a battery to get hot enough that therminals are very hot.  You can blow them up that way.

I was browsing the forum and realized I didn't say how this story ended.. apparently the starter got burned out, probably from my brother trying to start it after putting that pesky washer on the wrong side. Replaced the starter and she has been running great ever since! Sadly she's all beat to hell and back now though. Don't loan your bike to a meth head.

JOG ,the key word being One , in one more chance,and yes we can all be had once.twice is our own fault.