Hitchcocks Forum

At present, my ’89 Bullet 350 is a good runner but a hard starter. It doesn't help that the kickstart only seems to engage about half way through its travel. Is this a symptom of wear on the pawl?
I have always been a little nervous of opening up the gearbox, it seems like a bit of a can of worms and greasy worms at that. The closest I have been is to replace the kickstart return spring and the gear leaver centralising spring.
If I take the next cover off, will lots of nasty grease come out? I am tempted to fit one of those gear clusters that sorts the ratios out while I am at it.

If you take the inner cover off a bit of grease and oil may come out, less if it's on its side stand. The main shaft and layshft should stay put and the outer stub of the kickstart shaft may come away with the inner cover. The pawl is part of the outer shaft and is easy to replace. Try going down one tooth on the gearbox sprocket, it makes the huge gap between 3rd and 4th much less noticeable and fourth becomes more flexible. It still won't rev out in 4th and it's cheaper than a close ratio box.

Erm you do have the kick start lever poking up high enough don't you. It's a silly question but it does make a difference.

Not necessarily wear in the pawl. There is a certain amount of "slack" as the pawl comes out of it's "parked" position. Try repositioning the lever as Simon suggests. If you do need to replace the pawl there's a tech. note here on how to do it. Just don't forget that the nut on the end of the main shaft is LHT

Thanks, I have positioned the lever as near vertical as I can without it causing discomfort. It doesn't engage until it's nearly horizontal.This does give enough travel for a full turn over compression from the top of the induction stroke, but more travel would make it faster.
Thanks for pointing out the tech notes, I hadn't seen them.

Mmmmm.....if it's consistently like that then I suspect the pawl is staying "parked" longer than it should. A worn pawl gives erratic positioning and slipping.
I did mine some time ago and my problem was the pawl not parking properly at all. A bit of work with a file was necessary to make everything operate as it should. If you do look in there, don't fit a new one and reassemble. Just make sure it's operating as it should first. it will be obvious if it's not.

Thanks pete. I do have a pawl replacement kit, so I would probably replace it as a piece of preventative maintenance, but i will take on board your suggestion that there may be other problems.