The Hodaka Club Forum

Occasionally, the return spring on my 250SL kickstart pops out of the kick start knuckle lever.

The procedure I use to reassemble it requires removing the clutch cover and disassembling the kick lever from the knuckle, removing the RH footpeg and tying down the brake lever. Then I look for a buddy to help wind the spring tension, install the knuckle and hold it back out of the way while I reinstall the clutch cover.

Finally the kick lever goes back on the knuckle and we're good -- unless the detent ball and spring hasn't popped out.

Is this standard procedure? There must be an easier way that I'm not picking up on.

Many thanks in advance.

It's been a while since put my kicker on but I don't remember having that much trouble. Pretty sure I didn't take the kick lever off the knuckle. As I recall, it wasn't much different than the procedure for a 100/125.

Darrell

I've had the same issue with my SL several times and have been able to get the clutch cover off without taking the lever off of the knuckle. With the foot peg removed, you can rotate the lever back and down far enough to insert a screwdriver into the foot peg hole to hold the lever in that position. This will give you just enough room to wiggle the clutch cover out and you won't need an assistant.

If the tang on the spring is bent, I install a new spring and make sure that the spring is inserted all the way into the hole in the lever. I suppose you could bend a bent spring back but that most likely will weaken it enough to break in short order.

Perhaps one of our engineering minded members can come up with a new improved spring design that would solve this time consuming problem that I am sure we all have had to deal with on occasion.

Hope it's not too cold and snowy there. It's sunny and 60 degrees here in N AZ.

Tom

After taking a harder look at the situation I've come up with a couple more thoughts:

1. When the kick lever winds up the spring the coils bind together and the spring shortens in length; which can withdraw the springs tabs from their anchoring holes in the engine and kick lever.
Solution: I've stretched the coils by pulling out the tabs until the spring length equals the depth of the coil cover.

2. On the 250s there may be more pre-tension on the return spring (when the kick lever is at rest) than is necessary. Consequently, the return spring coil is overwound when the lever reaches the end of its rotation.
Solution: relocate the anchoring hole in the engine case about 45-60 degrees counter-clockwise from the original. Note- I haven't tried this because I can't verify if there's enough casting to avoid drilling into the oil cavity without inspecting a disassembled engine.

3. There's no way around to re and re-ing the kick lever without removing the side case/clutch cover.

4. The Wombat (and probably other small bore Hodakas) have an 11 to 6 oclock kick throw with no spring issues. 250s have a short kick throw from 11 to 8 oclock, or less, but still pop the return spring. This makes me think there's some credence to idea 2.