Been screwed, pushed my 80 flt a number of times. OK if you get some help. My present chopper is an 80in EVO kick only. Was a bitch until broken in, is now relatively easy to start.
4 spd, S+S E carb, Crane 356B cam. Been kickin' since I was a baby. Mine is not cosmetic.

I'd like to add some of my experiences with this bike. Have observed that the 12.5v static may not be enough to give good spark on kicking a newer engine. The bike would fire first hit if pushed, but you could kick all day and not get a poof. Turns out(no pun) that the rpm required for the alt to hit 14v was just over what the kicker would provide. A better coil might have helped, but breaking in the motor has solved that. Spinning more freely provides the power to fire it up with no problem now. You do find out who your real bro's are when you ride a kick only bike.

 

Here you go the 1985 Evolution Engine with Kick & Electric start

 

Did you ever get the kick'r. Had one on my '85 softail (original factory installed), tried kickin it several times with no success...not really designed for kickin with the electric start (straight from the dealer). However, if you got one your right about it lookin cool.

 

No, I never got it..but I still want it, eventually. It will be awhile though. If it wasn't a bitch to kickstart (if it'd start within 5-6 kicks) i'd probably use it all the time if I had it.

 

I contacted a guy on ebay who had installed several of the aftermarket kickers. He said the gears are crap and that the mainshaft keeps coming unscrewed. THe fix for the aftermarket kicker on a 5 speed is buy the $200 gear from Baker and then weld the mainshaft extension on instead of bolting it. After hearing that I figured I would have at least 600 bucks in a kicker and I just can't justify that right now

 

with the Crane Hi4, on 'kickstart' setting, you will not go wrong when you eventually add the kicker.

With the stock ignition.......it will rarely start on the pedal.

There is a lot of Korean/Taiwanese junk in bolt-on kicker kits.

Mokey is right. Baker. You get what you pay for.

 

be prepared to have very limited selection of exhaust systems that work with an EVO kickstart. The ones you have in the picture will not work, nor will any that have the "S" bend on the rear pipe (which is almost all nowadays). There are some available that will work, but they are rather plain.

 

My 85 FXWG will start on the kicker fairly easily.

 

will stock ignition work on a 1997 evo with 5 speed kickstart conversion kit .1985 evo came with kickstart aren't the ignitions the same

 

harley made a few pre production evos in 83, rip from easy riders magazine ended up with one of them

Harley put a lot of road miles in on the evo to get it right from day 1, unlike the twin cams that were never right

the FXR and FLT frames were designed with the evo in mind , that's way they have lots of daylight above the rocker covers to accommodate the taller evo motors