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/5 Kickstarter

sloane

New member
I recently acquired a 1971 75/5. My wife gets mad when she see me sitting in the driveway drinking a beer and just staring at it because it is so beautiful. Anyway, it does not have a kickstarter. Does anyone have experience/advice on the difficulty/cost of adding one? Thanks.
 
I don't recall if a non-kickstart model was an option that early on. I know for the later models that did not come standard with the kicker, it was an option to add it. At a minimum, the rear cover would need to be replaced along with adding the kicker lever and internal elements. You might be better off considering purchase of a spare transmission with a kick start and having it overhauled for retrofitting to the bike.

Why do you desire to have a kick starter on the bike?

Personally, I'm not sure the cost/effort would be worth it. There are some benefits I suppose, but that's where one has to weight those costs. It's a point of contention, but generally speaking the /5 kick mechanism was not as robust as that of the /2 that proceeded it. The /5 kick start was considered more of a backup to the electrical start...the /2 had to electric start. At best, the kick start for the /5 was more of an emergency need if the starter failed. But all of the /6-on models that followed it don't seem to need the backup. Plus we've all figured out ways to bump start the bike to get going.

Sorry, I don't have any solid costs, but my gut is that a spare transmission overhauled would be upwards of $750-1000. Maybe yours could be overhauled for half to three quarters of that.
 
Yes, all /5's came with electric and kick starters. They were all 4 speed tranny's. I'm thinking yours may have been changed out to a later 5 speed tranny '75 or newer.:dunno Just guessin.
 
Just another guess, maybe the kick lever has been removed. Maybe show a pic of the tranny to ID it. :)
 
Just another guess, maybe the kick lever has been removed. Maybe show a pic of the tranny to ID it. :)

Even if the lever has been removed, there will still be a shaft sticking out the rear cover of the transmission with a flat area machined on the shaft to accept the locating pin for the kickstart lever. BTW, /5 kickstart trannies were all 4 speeds. There was also a /6 kickstart for at least 74 as standard equipment, but that was a 5 speed. They could be, and often were, interchanged.

Friedle
 
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