KLR Mods - Kickstart from Chris
Hi Mark
My name is Chris and i live in Inverness in Scotland, UK. I rode a
KLR650
round Australia for a year and then imported it back here because I
love
it. KLR650's arent very common here, the Yamaha XT600 Tenere and Honda
Dominator/XR600 based bikes are popular dirt machines.
Anyway, My KLR 650 is a 1989 A3 model. I fitted the kickstart from a
KLR600
and it works perfectly.
The KLR650 is electric start only, but it grew out of the KLR 600 (was
this
ever imported to the states?) which has a kickstart and no electric
start.
When kawasaki built the 650 they used the bottom end of the 600,
modified
it to take the electric start, and just blanked off the holesin the
cases
where the 600's kickstart components used to be.
I destroyed my clutch by pulling wheelies across Melbourne with my
buddy on
the back, so I did all this whilst I was replacing th eclutch.
If you can have a look in a workshop manual for a 600 you'll see what
you
need, but basically the bits you need are:
kickstart lever
Its return spring
the splined shaft the kickstart bolts onto, which also has a pinion
quadrant (the quarter round bit with teeth that meshes into the clutch
basket and spins the engine when you jump on the kickstart)
there are two small plates of metal about 25mm long which act as the
stop
for the return spring.
I bought all of these from a used bike wreckers/dismantlers.
Fitting is dead easy, take off the right engine cover (the one with the
oil
sightglass). From the inside push the oil seal outwards until it pops
out
of the cover. Next follow your instruction manual to take off your
clutch
basket. Now you need to remove the blanking seal in the crankcase
itself,
stab it with a sharpened screwdriver and lever it out. Fit the shaft
you
have bought from the wreckers, fit the small retaining plates
(referring to
the manual to see which way round they go), replace clutch and engine
cover, bolt kickstart lever onto the shaft. Job done.
My Bike starts from the kickstart but remember the 650 doesnt have the
same
decompression facility as the 600 had. This means that you have to give
one
helluva mighty kick to spin the engine fast enough. I weigh 16 stone
and
used to own a Triumph 750 Bonneville, so I am used to kickstarting
awkward
bikes. To tell the truth I hardly use the Kickstart when there's an
electric start there, but last autumn (fall to you guys over the water)
my
electric start failed, and the kickstart allowed me to keep using the
bike
for another 2 months until the winter snow arrived. Bike got fixed in
my
heated garage over winter time.
There you go, The whole operation took me 2 hours and I'm not a
mechanic, I
work in an office. If you need to you can contact me on this email
address
but please dont distribute it to other people as my boss wont be
pleased.
Put this mod onto your site if you want, if you need more details or
pictures from the manuals then contact me.
good site, well done
Chris
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