Eva

Me too! I felt a bit silly after seeing his other post, but, oh well-- you all got to know me a little better. Cheers!

I work for Harley-Davidson. My first bike is my Yamaha. Did I catch a lot of flack? You bet! But, motorcycle lovers are motorcycle lovers, no matter the brand. It's hard to be loyal to just one when they've all got something exceptional. H-D holds 50%+ of the U.S. large bike market-- of course there will be copycats! Leave it alone. Live and let live, gee whiz... And on a side note: I love my Yamaha-- it's perfect for me...it's small (I'm small) and it's my first bike with a small displacement (beginner level, YAY!). Harley's lowest CC bike (883) is too much for me right now and the Buell is just a little too cheesy, not my style...

Thanks, Harv. I think I found it! There was a tiny little pin (machined) jammed between two teeth of the main drive gear. Once we removed it, the gears turned easily and the kick gear worked fine. It seems that only minor damage occurred on the smaller drive gear and I can't wait to get the engine back on and running! Now the wonder is: Where the heck did that pin come from?

I've broken my bike! I suspect it's from push starting it when I was fed up with trying to kick start it (low on gas and trying to get to the gas station). Once it started after push-starting, the engine sounded TERRIBLE! When I stopped the engine because of the horrible noise, the kick-starter wouldn't move more than an eighth of the way down. Backing the bike up in gear reset the kick-start, but the engine still sounded awful when started. I've checked the cylinder and piston and everything is A-OK. What could I have done? Gears broken? Crankshaft bent? It's just so darn hard to get in there!!! Luckily I found anther engine and kick assembly on eBay, but my engine looks much better than it. Is there an easy way to diagnose this? Thanks for your help, Eva