I installed the kickstarter, but it is so hard to kick start!

Any tips on getting it to go?

 

Push the magic button on the handlebar.

 

How hard?? Is your decomp working correctly?? Big bore?
Maybe years of the e button made you weak??

 

I put the kick starter on my klx at the same time I did the 351 upgrade, so I'm not sure how the 250 is to kick. I do have a klr250 that is kick start only and it's so easy I can do it by hand sometimes. The klx with the 351 big bore does take a little more to figure out to kick start. I've been successful most of the time if I get the piston just past TDC on the compression stroke then bring the kick start lever back up. Just give it a good kick all the way through and it should come to life. It took me a little while to figure out, but it's easy once you know the sweet spot.

 

Shouldn't be harder than a drz400 should it? Stand on the pegs and push down!

 

Check out this YouTube video:

 

I would venture to say the compression release position isn't in prime position for kick starting.

Since I don't have a bike to test this I will tell you what we did with the XR600L kick start big bores:

• Prod the kickstarter past the exhaust stroke and starting up the compression stroke.
• Let the kick start lever back up.
• Kick down with a strong purposeful stroke.

That will spin the engine fast enough it should start. The thought process is if you start just past compression (or go past with the acr) to spin it fast enough to get a good intake stroke and momentum to spin through the power stroke, maybe even a couple times on small bores. On a 500 or 600 if you do a half hearted kick you are asking to have the bike kick back - that can be painful.

But as said, the e-start does it far easier, faster, and very reliably so.

I find the kick start to be one of the more questionable mods to the KLX. As long as one keeps the battery up and decent by riding and charging if the bike sits for long periods, the electric start will work great. My 47,000 miles on my 650 has proven that to me.

If you do happen to have a dead battery you bump start the bike. I had to do that when I had a spark plug go bad (learned that after the fact). My buddy would push me off or I'd coast down a grade and bump start the 650. I should have replaced the plug earlier. Since I don't ride alone on back roads and off road there is always another rider to help. When alone I have pushed the bike up a grade to bump start down the grade. In addition every time I have had a problem it has been my fault. I went with too little charge when I should have charged the battery (early spring) or should have replaced a spark plug in a reasonable amount of time. The 650 is buried under the tank so I'd usually do it every time I had the tank off, which isn't often.

Some racers have gone to e-start both because it can be reliable and that it takes less time to start and the rider saves energy that is needed for racing.

If you carry stuff with you it would be possible to throw in one of those booster packs to have in case of dead battery, but that happens so seldom.

I am not a wimp when it comes to kick starting though. One of my bikes is a Yamaha SR500, which is a no frills manual compression release 500cc engine. It starts on a kick or two with the standard drill. Prod to compression, pull lever, ease piston just past TDC, let up lever, boot like I mean it. One of the many charms of the SR500. A bare bones no counter balancer 2 valve kick start big single. I've had 2 of them and enjoyed them very much.