Hitchcocks Forum

My Bullet is leaking gear case oil around the kick stater spindle. After looking at the parts diagrams I can see no seal. What keeps it from leaking ? This is a left side shift model.

There is no seal because there is no oil in the outer part of the gearbox.

The gearbox is also filled with 00 grade grease, not oil (you top-up with oil if it gets low). Which is the main reason it doesn't leak all over the place.

Here's what you see if you take the outer cover off the gearbox:


Grease could potentially leak round the kickstarter spindle where it fits in the inner cover and creep along it to reach the outside. There is an O-ring on the foot starter spindle to prevent this. This may be your issue. This picture shows both the outer and inner gearbox covers removed with the kickstarter spindle in place on the layshaft. You can see the O-ring just behind the hole where the return spring would fit.


So if you've filled it with oil, drain that and fill it with grease and your problem should go away. If not, I'd suspect that o-ring or potentially ovalling of the hole it fits in if it has seen a lot of use, which it is should become apparent if you remove the outer cover and check for play on the shaft.

My owners manual says to put 50w oil in the gear box. The gear box has a fill plug a drain plug and an oil level plug. I didn't see that the kick start spindle had an o ring for a seal that must be my problem. Thanks for the photos.

I took the end cover off and it indeed has grease in it. How do you know how much to put in it?

The grease is semi-fluid. You heat it up (I sat my tin of grease in a pan of boiling water with the lid fitted loosely) and pour it in until it oozes out of the level screw. It is a deeply unpleasant task. Last time I did it, I used a big 60ml syringe with a wide "catheter" type tip. A traditional grease gun would also probably work.

I uploaded a lot of pictures of me stripping and reassembling my gearbox. Might be helpful.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12432

Disposable icing piping bags work well to get the grease in when warm.

Putting grease in the gearbox is a bodge conjured up by the Indians, I put oil in mine as originally specified at Redditch. Yes, grease is less likely to leak, but it is messy, difficult to get out - the drain plug should also give a clue as to the contents being something which can be drained out, rather than scooped out from a partially stripped gearbox. Also the level plug is there to allow excees oil to flow out when the correct level is attained, grease will not run out. Grease will pick up fine particles as wear takes place and turn into a fine grinding paste over time and it will also rob more of the very little power available to the rear wheel. If your kickstart o ring and gearbox mainshaft seal are good, the gearbox will hold oil with no problems. I use 20/50 in mine.

In fairness, if it's hot, the vast majorioty of the grease will come out of the drain hole and it does ooze out of the level screw when you check.

I tried 90wt gear oil in my 350 gearbox and a lot of it leaked out (quite slowly) through the left side when it was parked up on the sidestand. I'm, guessing along the mainshaft sleeve and round the back of the sprocket.