The CR which I picked-up last winter has never been dis-assembled. Basically all of the fasteners are perfect. When I took off the clutch side cover all of the phillips head fasteners were in perfect condition. Inside the clutch was perfect...really no visible wear...no pieces lying in the bottom of the case, etc...When I went to re-assemble the clutch cover to the crankcase I used some nice new allen head bolts. When I tightened them up I ran into problems.
What happened was that when I tightened-up the bolts the kick-starter shaft became bound (tightened) in the side case cover. It was very difficult to push down and it would not return with just the return spring. I could move it through it's normal travel but only with too much effort. I took it apart and re-assembled everything several times to insure that the kick-start shaft had not been re-assembled incorrectly. I even tried re-assembling everything without a gasket...that made no difference. As of right now I have been able to get the kick-start shaft to return on its own only by very carefully tightening the side case cover bolts slowly being sure to go back and forth from side to side to try to get everything very evenly tightened. Even adding gentle taps with a plastic mallet to try to keep things even. Even with this extra care I have to leave the bolts around the kick-start shaft just barely tightened in order for the kick-start shaft to return with the return spring.
Any ideas out there? I've checked that the side case cover is not warped by placing it on a big piece of glass...And, by the way, the kick-starter returned very strongly before I took the side case cover off...and the original fixing bolts were on very tight...I had to use a impact driver to remove them...
Has anyone else had this issue???
Thanks in advance for any ideas/suggestions...
Mike
http://meditarivemachinery.blogspot.com/