Hitchcocks Forum

Hi all,
After an almighty spit back the starter will no longer work. I suspected the sprag clutch. On strip down their appears to be no broken bits from the sprag! , we are talking bullet 65 here. The question is ,with the sprag in place behind the circlip I can get the sprag to go both clockwise and anti clockwise with the aid of a screwdriver ,is this normal? I thought the sprag only went one way round and that was the reason they failed when the engine spit back or am I looking for a different fault ie starter motor or?

Hi David, I had one that after a severe kickback that somehow one of the little teeth in the sprag turned over and it would turn both ways. It is very hard to see the diffefence in the teeth but they are and to find which one it was it took a while to find and turn around and I could only do it with a magnifying glass. To be honest you are probably wasting your time because it will fail again. After a while you get sick of fixing them

Don't worry about the starter motor, I have never seen one fail, the sprag never lasted long enough to wear the starters out

Hi norm,
Thanks for the prompt reply,it sounds as if it might not be worth fixing really and I don't want to go to needless expense!! What I may do is put the money into a better pair of boots with a stronger instep for the kicking leg. I need to fix the kickstart return spring as it is getting a bit reluctant to return also!!! Always a job to do, it's a good job I can rely on the R80 to get me to where I want to go when I want to go.
Cheers David W