armyofda12mnkeys Posted July 13, 2010 Posted July 13, 2010 Hey guys, I am disassembling my old xs400 engine, and i was curious how the kickstart works... i tried putting it in the same way i saw it in there but not sure i did it correctly... It seems to turn the engine's gears to turn crank when i pull it up not 'kicking' down as i would expect ... Heres some video to go along with my question (have i guess an initial question about sprocket too) PS no clutch plates in the bike currently but i dont think that affects anything relating to starting up the bike.
2 Wheels Posted July 13, 2010 Posted July 13, 2010 You will have to push a screwdriver in there to open the locking tang, Just use screwdriver to get it started then put your socket on it and TAP it in till its flush----open nut. The kick start,----you have it in 180 to far arround the cogs. Take it out, the place where your foot goes on the kickstart should be at the top when your putting it in. Then Yes you will be kicking down (backwards) and it will spring back up to the top for the next kick. You will understand it better when the engine is back togeather. Good vid---- to explain your prob
Vez Posted July 13, 2010 Posted July 13, 2010 You will have to push a screwdriver in there to open the locking tang, Just use screwdriver to get it started then put your socket on it and TAP it in till its flush----open nut. The kick start,----you have it in 180 to far arround the cogs. Take it out, the place where your foot goes on the kickstart should be at the top when your putting it in. Then Yes you will be kicking down (backwards) and it will spring back up to the top for the next kick. You will understand it better when the engine is back togeather. Good vid---- to explain your prob I figured it was just the kick start lever that was not on in the 12 o'clock position? ie 90 degrees out.? Vez
2 Wheels Posted July 13, 2010 Posted July 13, 2010 I figured it was just the kick start lever that was not on in the 12 o'clock position? ie 90 degrees out.? Vez Aye maby your right Vez, Its just in the vid he was pointing to the return spring which made me think that he had taken the hole shaft out and not just taken the kick lever off the end. I know----lets ask him,,,, Did ya take out the hole kick start-shaft or did ya just take off the kicker on the end ? ps. whats up with the engine or are ya just stripping it down to learn about it ?
armyofda12mnkeys Posted July 13, 2010 Author Posted July 13, 2010 Aye maby your right Vez, Its just in the vid he was pointing to the return spring which made me think that he had taken the hole shaft out and not just taken the kick lever off the end. I know----lets ask him,,,, Did ya take out the hole kick start-shaft or did ya just take off the kicker on the end ? ps. whats up with the engine or are ya just stripping it down to learn about it ? Oh, I took out the whole kick start-shaft ... I was just pointing out that i thought i returned the parts of thee spring to their correct positions ... The lever was also taken off, I added it back on to an arbitrary position to test out how the kickstart turned the engine after i took everything off. I have the engine covers off mostly for learning now and getting used to stuff, starting to feel kinda comfy. I helped my friend a lil' rebuild his 85 ninja so started getting confident I could do mine. I'm going put alternator/clutch covers back on and remove engine soon as I think did all the other steps except sprocket/chain and main mounting screws. So I have a head gasket leak and a few other leaks so bought a full gasket kit ... Plus the transmission/clutch seems super clunky so may put in a new tranny if the gears look goofy (have new clutch plates but the old ones seemed to be within good range). wrote before it gets in a "False nuetral in between 4th? and 5th gear and clunky going up and down gears, hard to find neutral or get out of nuetral sometimes." So I'm buying an 1980 xs400 rebuilt engine with electric ignition and swapping that in next week and gonna try to follow along the steps to get it electric ignition working (or swap my points if thats too hard hehe). Then gonna spend rest of summer for learning mostly on the old engine and rebuild it and convert that to electric... then maybe buy another xs400 and swap that in haha
Moderator drewpy Posted July 13, 2010 Moderator Posted July 13, 2010 also note that the engine won't turn over with the clutch disengaged/missing as the kick gear moves the gears through the tranny via the clutch to the main drive pinion at the end of the crank!!
armyofda12mnkeys Posted July 14, 2010 Author Posted July 14, 2010 EDIT i got it!. haha for some reason i was assuming you kick forward to kickstart it lol... i sat on the bike and realized i kick backwards as someone else mentioned... Also the part sticking out from end of the shaft should be facing down 180 vs the 90 to the left i had it (the wrong '90 degree' way i set it up can be seen in video below)... the correct 180 degree location sets up much more tension for the kickstart spring to snap back in place. Thanks guys, i understand it better now! ignore old message... also note that the engine won't turn over with the clutch disengaged/missing as the kick gear moves the gears through the tranny via the clutch to the main drive pinion at the end of the crank!! yes, i just want to test out how the mechanism theoretically works before i put engine/clutch back together. Im guessing i have it placed in wrong and then the spring then maybe placed wrong as a result of that bad position as it doesnt snap back. I guess my question is how to put it in correctly Here is me trying to put it in... from how I'm lining up everything ... from the metal part sticking out at the end of the shaft, to where im holding the gear/clip when putting it in, and then setting springs, and then putting kickstart back on.
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