No resistance in the Kickstarter 175DT

[Jherbst1002]

Alright, I'm new here and I'm new to repairing old motorcycles. I found a 175DT in an outbuilding of one of our family farms.

It was in an accident at one point and was never repaired. Needs a few parts and the front fork straightened out.

Before I dove too far I just wanted to see if the engine was free. The kickstarter moves freely, but I get no resistance and I don't here any sort of compression. I'm also not getting spark to the plugs when I check them. I put a fresh battery in it so I know it's not the battery. It has brand new spark plugs as well.

Maybe a bad gasket? Bad starter? Any of your information would help, the old manual is helpful if the bike is brand new. Not as helpful when the bike is 50 years old

[rwgibbon]

Do the pistons rotate while you are kicking it over? If they
don't, it means the kick starter is not engaging.

I suggest you download the service manual and read it.
(free on this site under downloads manuals)

Good luck.

Randy

[Jherbst1002]

Hey Randy, thanks for the tip.

I do have the manual, I printed it off and have been reading through it. It doesn't seem that the Kickstarter is engaging so I suppose thatll be my jumping off point on this project

[OldSwartout]

If you can get it to shift, you can upshift to 5th and try to spin the engine using the rear wheel.

[Jherbst1002]

Old Swartout, I don't have a clutch lever, I've been trying to Jerry rig something until I get one but I haven't found anything that works.

That's something that I should've mentioned, when pressing the Kickstarter I'll get 3" of movement and then it'll stop. But if I give it a little wiggle it will sometimes rotate past that stopping point which I believe is the Kickstarter catching but being unable to pull the clutch it can't turn over