Hitchcocks Forum

They normally go crunch due to a backfire on starting, though it sounds like yours might also have had a low-speed misfire (cause?) with the same effect. Time for a primary strip-down to check, I suggest. (



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They can go bang in various ways I have seen them flip the sprag teeth over so a few of them point the wrong way. I have seen them sieze op on the shaft and then they can be a major job to remove because if you can't get the gear removed, you can't remove the engine sprocket and therefore you can't remove the screws holding the primary on

They do go BANG.

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I can't remember exactly what had happened it was a long time ago but the sprag gears had seized to the shaft and we couldn't remove the gears. Eventually we were able to hammer one of the gears in through the starter motor hole to get the teeth to line up so they could slide off the gear on the engine sprocket. Luckily after a lot of hitting we got it moved, we were at the stage late at night to bring out the grinder and start hacking away at the gears so we could remove them

In other words, you might have got off lightly, Eric!



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I can't help thinking that the combination is OE electronic ignition off the left side of the crank plus no starter motor is a good option. By sheer luck the first and only RE I've owned (my present 350, iron barrelled Bullet Electra) comes like that. It's thankfully usually a first kick starter - at least now I've replaced the exhaust valve seat with one that doesn't recess after 50 miles so. The days of embarrassing myself when trying to kickstart the thing half to death because of an almost total lack of compression when out with the lads, followed by tappet adjustments at the roadside, are hopefully gone for good.

One thing I do regret was not fitting an Adrian style decomp to my Electra just to see if it made starting a bit easier but the bottom end gave up before I got around to doing it.

If the E/S no longer features you can tidy the bike up a bit and save a little weight by fitting the inner timing cover from a K/S 350 (TCI) Indian home-market Electra from about 2004/5 (might need an extra hole for the gear-change shaft if you haven't right-foot shifted it).







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And I fitted a distributor to mine so it didn't have that stupid looking blank wall where the distributor used to be

Did you use a stepped rotor key or file the trigger plate mounting holes oval to retard the ignition, Eric?



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