Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

I bought an nice origional Mr175 that has been sitting for years from a guy I work with recently. It runs, but roughly. It acts like it's starving for gas and want to die, but when you throttle it it'll suddenly wake up and try to flip you. I've cleaned the carb. several times without preval. I can't figure what it could be. Also the kick starter will slip on you when you go to kick it sometimes. I think its the spring but I dont wanna break the cases. Can anyone help me!?

I too had a plugged exhaust, the bike kept flooding and killing the spark plug. I took the pipe to a radiator shop and got them to soak it in there costic acid tank now it runs like yours, bogs at low end then gets up and flys. Let us know if you figure out the problem. as for the kick starter I had to buy a used trans off Ebay and get the seller to remove the starter pinion assembly. This is located under the clutch cover. A pawl,held in place by a ring,engages with internal teeth on the starter pinion gear. If the pawl or the internal teeth are worn it wont always engage. Not too hard to get at, but hard to find a good one ,at least around here. The used one I bought still slips sometimes. Lets hope yours is just stickin. sometimes you can get away with just fileing a bur off the pawl. good luck.

Hi! I have had similiar problems with a MR175 of mine, and found that the exhaust system was plugged. I pulled the exhaust off and found it ran great. I cleaned the pipe out, and it ran like a million bucks. As for the kicker, it sounds like the small pinion on the kicker is not engaging on the internal side of the gear. It is a small key that is held in place by a type of spring clip. You may try either replacing the spring clip to get more tension, or if you can find another key, replace that also. If the kickstart recoils fine, then it is not your spring, which is inside the case which sucks to replace and to find. You will only need to pull the clutch side cover to get to the kicker gear assembly. I hope this helps!