Hi guys,

as I mentioned in earlier posts, I´m currently trying to tune up a 1987 Tenere 1VJ on my own (as far as my knowledge and skills go) and need some advice if any of you had experienced the same thing:

The bike has both electric-starter and kickstarter. Since I got the bike, I managed to start it by kicking a few times (previous owner didn´t even try it in the past 5 years) and it worked well every time, felt the -Woooff- noise of the compression but that was all. The thing is that a few months ago I tried it again but this time it didn´t feel right at all, and when pushing the kickstart-lever down with my foot it did a "draggy" noise, as if it was dragging some gears that should be free. Ever since it did the same exact thing. When starting the bike with the startermotor though there is no draggy noise at all and works just fine.

It happened that I brought the bike to a mechanic (because it needed a rectified cylinder) and I told him the issue I had when kickstarting and he told me that it could be the freewheel of the starter motor, which makes sense for me because that would mean that when kickstarting I´d be actually dragging the whole rotor of the starter.

Did any of you had this before and con confirm/deny that? Is it easy to access and repair it, or should I let the mechanic do the job? I know most of you aren´t really fan of bringing the bike to one, but I´m 20 Y/O and have really few knowledge/tools/place to do more difficult jobs jet....

Cheers, Ibai

Well you could remove the starter & try it again, that will either prove/disprove the motor.

Mezo.

Sounds simple enough hahhahha,
thanks for that Mezzo, gonna check that first when I have the chance to get my hands on the bike.

Is it a common failure?

Ibai wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 11:09 amIs it a common failure?

No, but its just a matter of elimination, it could be your starter sprag clutch binding up?

Mezo.

Yesterday I had the chance to speak to a friend of mine who is a mechanic and told him the whole story and he said the same, that it most probably has to do with the starter "freewheel" or sprag clutch (not sure how it is called in english). He also told me that it is quite rare that to happen and that it will be quite difficult to find replacement parts at a reasonable price, mostly because the teneres with both E-start and kickstart were only for a few years on the market. I think I´m going to ride it as it is by now (using only the E-starter) and look at the (auxiliary) kickstarter in winter, when the weather sucks and it is more acceptable to me not to ride for a while...

However I´ll try to kick it once I remove the Electric starter as you said, to confirm that that is really the issue. If I´m right it will be no problem to ride it as it is as long as I dont try to kickstart it again.

Thx for the info Mezzo, really appreciate it!

You can search other guys issues with the sprag clutch, use the search box (top tight) and enter "sprag clutch" there are three pages of results.

Mezo.

Alright, thanks for all the help!!