Kicking the 500s

Is it right that the kickstart lever on my '83 XC500 normally rests at 12 O'Clock, only engages at 3 O'Clock and stops at 6 O'Clock? It's only giving me "3 hours" (90 degrees) of purchase, which makes starting "interesting".

I'm tempted to angle the lever further forward (to about 10 O'Clock), but the owners manual warns against doing this, stating that it can cause damage if there is a backfire on starting.

My 500 has the long straight verticle lever fitted. Is that my problem?

Lastly - is there a way to adjust the "bite" when fitting the kick-start-shaft so that the action of kick starting the bike turns the engine over sooner in the sweep of the kick start lever?

Thanks for any advice
Lucien

I had the tall alum. straight kicker on my 83-500XC. I'm 6'2" and had to stand on something to kick it. I went back to the original kicker. I was looking at the kicker parts inside the case and the pawl that engages the kicker gear is on a guide/ramp that it has to travel that 90deg. to engage the gear. I'm not sure if they did that so the kicker wasn't up so high when it engages that no one could reach it or they didn't want kicker to end up in a vulunerable spot for kickback. It is a sprag style so when engine starts pawl "ratchets" one way. I know it doesnt kick the engine thru much being such a long stroke engine making starting harder. To be honest I ride my WR250 alot more just because it starts alot easier than my two 500's. My 82-430 has alot more compression than the 500's but it always starts easier. It came with the long straight kicker on it but I changed it back to stock also. I always kick mine thru slowly to start so I can find that one spot were the start pawl engages at the top, gives alot more stroke on the kick. They have to spin fast to generate voltage with the magneto to make spark. I'm working on a small battery overide to put on my bikes so I only have to kick them hard enough to make compression, battery will supply voltage and ignition will still trigger it, engines starts switch back to magneto. Maybe by spring.

Hi Husq Fleet, thanks for that. It is a long way up to that kicker. I lean the bike on a tree, stand on the pegs and kick with my left foot.

That's what I do with my other bikes, and after a bit of "hunting" you can usually get the lever near the top of its stroke and engaged with the starter cog. My XC500 doesn't do that. It's always 3pm no matter how much I tease it. That's why I wondered whether the shaft was in wrong.

That sounds like a great idea. Please let me know if you get soemthing working. I'd be interested in this mod. I have the MZ-B ignition.

Thanks
Lucien

Kicking one of these things isn't like kicking a Norton where the kickstarter swings all the way to straight down is it? The current 250 design is actually worse as the pedal can't be pushed down past the footpeg. Not that this issue is husky specific by any means.

The way to start the bike is to stand off of it and kick with the right leg. Standing in the pocket for the trailer ball on a pick up bumper is about right if you don't have something else. You can even tie down the suspention. The technique involves kicking to the rear with a good amount of force at the beginning so your set up isn't like normal. Never have had that kick starter on the bike only the origional. It does bottom out basically hitting in the area of the footpeg pivot. As things wear you make sure the swingarm bolt doesn't stick out of the nut on that side as the nylon portion of the nut may start to get bruised up.

If you take off the clutch cover you will see how the pawl retracts in perhaps the last oclock of rotation. If the pawl is retracted nothing will super squish the rubber block on the clutch cover and cause the damage the manual is trying to have you avoid.

My experience is that the air cooled 500 starts fine if you can start it. Admittedly that big heavy slide in the carburetor may have rattled itself kind of loose and it might take grafting on a modern carb to get back to origional starting characteristics. If you look at the heads of an air cooled 430 and an air cooled 500 you will see that if I was to say they both basicallly start equally hard and need the same techniques you might believe me because the volume of the 500 head is much larger. Some 420 and 430 cylinders have a small hole kind of an angle from inside the exhaust passage to above the exhaust which also wasn't a husky specific thing probably to make starting easier. Never seen that on a 500 so factor that into the discussion.

Fran

I had the '82.5 500, '84 500 and still have the '85 500....

I have been advised (there are also several posts which recommend) that timing should be set to 1.5 Deg BTC which should aid starting and reduce the chance of kick back.

I never 'stabbed' at the kick starter... always preferring to stand on a box, up hill to kick it..

I also shortened the long kick starter on my '84 which made it easier to reach but slightly harder to kick.

I never found it difficult because I never knew any better... always rode Huskys...

Stu

I looked at the clutch cover I have off of my 84-WR500 and see the pawl and the distance it has to travel to engage the kicker gear. Looks to me like they made it travel that far to lower the kicker. Maybe I missed something but I do not see why you couldnt grind that plate to make the pawl engage sooner? No matter were it is, it is still a one-way sprag style, if engine kicks back it will engage in any spot? Running it "bounces" against spring. Might be the range of the engines stroke in relationship to kicker degrees of travel? I have size 13 feet and if I'm doing alot of starting-tuning I just take the foot peg off, saves my boot, foot and blood pressure.

Thanks for all the responses.

Fran - I think the long straight kicker is standard fit from late '83 onwards although the shaft (inside the clutch case) is the same part number for years '82 to '86. From what you say about the pawl, it shouldn't damage the cases if I forward mount the kick lever a bit. My bike doesn't have the rubber bumper on the clutch case. Guess I'd better fit one. That start-valve (tube?) on the 430s sounds interesting. Haven't seen that before.

Stu - I have retarded the ignition also to 2.2mm (from 2.8mm?) btdc which is what the service bulletin 8-156 (1984) suggested to ease strain on the kickstarter shaft. I guess with modern higher octane fuels producing faster burn times you could retard a bit further than that. My bike does start quite easily, as in "it's not a pig", but I feel with a better poke off the first kick it'd probably start first or second. It's difficult to get that motor spinning from the kickstart the way it is. If it does blow-back it's only a huff rather than a full kick-in-the-pants.

Husq.fleet - surely if the kickstarter engages gears earlier in its sweep, then if you couldn't reach the lever at the top you would have the option to start lower down? i.e surely they wouldn't engineer the mechanism to suit short people, they'd make it suitable for tall people (bite at the top) and shorties just have to stand on something? (no offence to shorties!)

So the consensus seems to be then that the kickstarter never engages at the top of its stroke, only from about half way down. Is that about right? Bum!

Cheers
Lucien

I got that long steel kickstarter on a dual shock water cooled 400. The 1983 xc500 which I still know the origional owner and the welder who put a blob of hardfacing on it in a key spot. I call it the dog leg one and it came on that bike origionally.

Woah, woah wrong higher octane burns slower. get some race gas, rip an aluminum can in half pour in some race gas and see for yourself. Higher octane resists detonation or flash over like you want in a diesel engine.


The way I read it was the dog leg version was the preferred one. I stated if you didn't kick to the rear at the begining of the stroke it wasn't quite normal.

MY 83-XC500 which I have known since new, bought from original owner-neighbor has the dog leg style. Same as the picture of the 83-500 in the CycleWorld test posted here someplace. My 84 WR500 has the long straight steel one, same for my 84-WR250. They are not bad on those two but the tall alum. one is too tall for me on my XC. My 84WR500 has a cracked clutch cover so I may try to grind the plate that determines when the starter pawl engages the kicker gear-nothing to loose if it kicks back. I also run my plug gap at .018, starts alot better

Yes you're right Fran, it does. Wasn't thinking. So why do people say to retard the timing compared to vintage manufacturer's settings to allow for modern fuel?

Modern low octane fast burning fuel requires retarded spark timing because of cylinder pressures=heat. You want the best dispersment/atomization as possible before the spark ignition. Retarded spark timing allows the piston to get closer to TDC before spark. With higher octane fuel the spark can before further before TDC because the fuel/air burns slower allowing the combustion force to peak just after TDC to push piston down=producing max power from input. With low octane fuel we "wait" retard the spark timing because the fuel/air mixture burns faster and tries to push the piston down slightly before TDC causing detonation, damage, low power. Optimum combustion is at highest cylinder compression with spark timing before TDC to achieve maximum combustion force 10-20 deg. ATDC for maximum crank throw leverage. When starting an engine you want retarded timing to ease cylinder pressures caused by combustion BTDC, kickback is combustion BTDC, piston is being pushed back down instead of going over TDC. I have digital ignition in my old 39 Chevy Gasser street/strip car. It has very high compression, to aid starting the ignition I have my ignition programmed to retard the timing 20 deg. Before I had that I would leave ignition switch off untill I had engine spinning fast with starter then turn switch on, eased starter and electrical system. Once engine started, RPM above 1000rpm it switched back to regular timing. A good friend who is a computer software/application engineer and I are working a system for our bikes. I have bad knees, bad back so I'm looking for a "easy" start aid for my big bores.

Very interesting Husq.fleet. So modern fuel is low octane. That explains it.

Maybe it would aid starting then to keep a thumb on the kill switch until two thirds of the way through my 90 degrees of biting kickstarter travel

Let us know if your electronic gizmo for bike starting gets anywhere. I like gadgets

I have an '84 CR500, which I was having some trouble starting a while back . This could have been due to the 44mm carb (off an '82.5 CR500) that I had fitted to it, which also had some wear in the slide . The slower velocity of air through the larger carb makes them harder to start , which is one of the reasons a lot of guys recommend going to a 38mm Mikuni on the 500 Huskys. I ended up changing the primary drive ratio on my 500, by using the clutch basket and primary gear off an aircooled 510 fourstroke, making it a lot easier to start. Because the 510 has more teeth on the ring-gear of the clutch basket (& less on the primary gear) , the piston moves further with each stroke of the kickstarter. The flywheel also spins faster, giving a fatter spark . It also though, requires more force to move the kickstart lever. You also have to change your final gearing to compensate for the lower primary gearing ratio. The 510 clutch basket has the same size gear on the back, that matches with the kickstart idler gear, as the 500 two stroke clutch basket.
I want to experiment further , by using the clutch off a 610 Husky which has even more teeth on the basket ring-gear (but also needs the 610 clutch cover for it to fit). I think that the 610 clutch hub is held on by a nut , rather than a circlip like the earlier models, so some machining or modification may be required. The 610 clutch experiment may have to be used in conjunction with a Maico 490 style decompresser, as shown in the attached image . I found this picture while browsing a French website (Le Guide Vert), which I think had been done by a Canadian guy in Quebec.

Re kickstarter: Had the same problem on my 81 430 XC. The lever wouldn't engage until about the 3PM position. No amount of kicking would spin that motor fast enough to generate any spark. Forest Stall repositioned the lever so it would engage almost immediately at about 1PM. Made all the difference in the world. He also suggested that I slowly kick the engine through until I felt TDC, then go slightly past it. Reposition the lever at the top of its stroke and give it a good kick from there. It started easily then. Well, maybe not easily, but a lot easier.

Being in-seam challenged didn't help things either. I'm about 5'9" and standing on something just a few inches (4 to 6) make a huge differnce. On the trail I look for a rut to put the bike in then I stand on the left side and kick it with my right foot. Schimmelaw has that bike now but all of the above applies to my current ride, an '87 430 WR.

LHill

Help with starting 500's

I machined a extra plug hole in the head and i am using a Vulcan decompressor from Vulcanworks (www.vulcanworks.net) in my 74 400 and my 82,5 500 silver streak, still with the 44mm carb. I was told by the old importer of Huskys in Australia, after i smashed a left case and the two kick start gears, that the motoplat internal rotor ignition are not reliable and the timing can vary intermittently at any time, he told me to put a motoplat mini six (much more stable or PVL) on it and time it at 2.2mm BTDC instead of 2.8 as the manual instructs you to.
Since changing the ignition to a motoplat mini six and fitting the decompressor it now starts third kick, just pime the motor with about four kicks with the choke on press the button on the decomp and kick it hard, as soon as it fires the decomp pops up and away you go.
I used the 14mm long thread decomp and just machined a spacer to get the decomp to be flush with the inside of the head, no cables to run or adjust just push the button and kick away.

press the button on the decomp and kick it hard, as soon as it fires the decomp pops up and away you go.

Why not! My Husky 394 chain saw had the same thing. Great tech tip-thanks alot from an old fat guy that has too many big bores he cant start. Scott

Hi
I am interested to use this decompressor system.
What do you think to use a smaller and a lot cheaper one like this? 38 US against 150 US !
http://vulcanworks.net/Compression-Release-Sets-p-17031.html

decomp

I sendt Vulcan an email, asking what they recomend for an aircooled old 500cc Mx bike.
They just answered part #3785 (the cheaper one)

Thanks, good to know! I see also that the prices is for a set of two.
Somebody tried this thing on the 500 engine? What is the experience?

mine was an absolute bitch to start, nearly broke my leg countless times . first thing i did was to get an old spark plug, bore the guts out of it then weld a bit of bar on the bottom ,stuck it in the lathe and bored a hole just big enough for my digital vernier to go through . now i can set the tdc more accurately . its now set at 2mm before tdc and a lot easier to start in fact today it was first kick .
the other mod i did was to grind the arm that holds the pawl mechanism so the pawl engages earlier ,thats a big difference ,also mine has an 86 kickstart on it (rubber end).
hope that helps