Wonder if you could advise me please. I just bought my self a 1984 XL600RD. I am having problems kick starting her. Feel like giving up. I have a 955i speed triple 2001 model and a 640 KTM duke2 of i need to sell them through financial situation. So i bought the XL600 . Which i taught be fun . I would appreciated your advise. Thanks Mate.
The XL600 is a fantastic bike. I loved loved loved mine. Any big bore thumper can be hard to start if you don’t know what your doing.
For all my older XR’s (and XL’s) I’ve found the easiest thing is to not use choke, but instead turn up the idle adjustment a turn or two. I often found that just 1 or 2 REALLY SOLID kicks without using the decompression release worked great.
Many people find that using the choke works great as long as you kick the bike through 4 or 5 times first to get a little gas in the cylinder.
It is definitely worth adjusting your valves if you haven’t in a while. Valves that are out of adjustment are notorious for making the big Honda thumpers hard to start.