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A mystery in reverse.

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Athame57:
Many years ago when I was a dispatch rider in the 1980s I had a flat mate, a girl called Becky, also a dispatch rider. She bought herself an aging Yamaha DT175 to take the strain off her haloed CBX550, (or maybe to preserve the cam chain tensioner?  :-\ ) Well, one morning she started it, went into gear to move off, and....WOW....it went backwards!  :o After a few more reverse starts it behaved itself again.
Until it had an electrical fire ( it seemed) one night that caused a fire so hot in her garage it practically melted both bikes.  ::)
Ok, what on earth might have made it go backwards though?

Bryanj:
Timing slightly wrong, rd 200 twins used to do it, when you went to start they kick back a bit and rotate backwards and being two stroke run happily

Skoti:
I wonder what year that DT175 was, because I seem to remember that some 1970's Yamaha's were fitted with a diode to prevent that happening.

McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
I owned an Arial Arrow sometime around 1965, I loved the two circular plumes of smoke from the rear silencers when you gave it some welly.

I was returning home from a ride out with my mate who at the time ran a Triumph Tigress 250 Scooter, as we were approaching a junction my Arrow lost its ability to move forwards, as if the final drive had failed. It also sounded odd, the clutch seemed to feel normal, all the gears seemed to select but no forwards motion.

At some point I decided to switch off the engine for closer investigation. It would not restart so it was a push home of about a mile. Engine was removed but I could not remove the crank from the casing, transpired they had some sort of coupling in the center of the crankshaft that had failed. Lots of metal in the bottom of the engine. The reason the engine would not start was that the kickstart was not rotating the cylinder that had the points/magneto.

I managed to find a brand new Golden Arrow Engine advertised in the local paper at Matlock for a very reasonable £30. On collecting the engine I recognised the seller as working in the parts department for Derby bike dealer. Only later did I wonder if the engine was a knock off.

TrickyMicky:

--- Quote from: Athame57 on April 05, 2026, 06:02:03 AM ---Many years ago when I was a dispatch rider in the 1980s I had a flat mate, a girl called Becky, also a dispatch rider. She bought herself an aging Yamaha DT175 to take the strain off her haloed CBX550, (or maybe to preserve the cam chain tensioner?  :-\ ) Well, one morning she started it, went into gear to move off, and....WOW....it went backwards!  :o After a few more reverse starts it behaved itself again.
Until it had an electrical fire ( it seemed) one night that caused a fire so hot in her garage it practically melted both bikes.  ::)
Ok, what on earth might have made it go backwards though?

--- End quote ---
Please excuse me, but I only got out of bed a little while ago, but when you describe your friend Becky as a flat mate, I thought that you could have done better than that!!!  Back on the reality stakes, many years ago  some Bond Mini cars were wires up so you could start the villiers engine backwards allowing you to reverse.

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