CRF's Only Forums

background info:
full rebuild of complete motor
new...crank, piston, cam chain, valves, valvetran, cam, clutch, clutch basket, oil pump, oem main bearings, misc other bearings, 450x trans gears, gaskets, manual cam chain adjuster.
ive rebuilt a trx450r 2005 the exact same way and had one slight issue but it fixed itself and idk how but not related to this.
ive double checked the timing with the straw trick cause its an 07, valve shims are spot on, the auto decompression is working and does more and the spring isn't broken.
I had missed swapping the shim from the clutch basket press in gear when I swapped, so I took that out and swapped it over.
after I did that I put the inner clutch basekt in and tighten it down and put on the outer case and moved the kicker by hand and it felt a lot better. I put the clutch in and bolted everything up and now its back to what its been doing....
it goes thru the motion of the kicker but it literaly hits a tight spot and kinda clunks past it slowly and rough and needing some serious pressure.
the motor cranks over with the 8mm allen easy like it should, so I ruled out the motor being an issue. I understand theres high compression cause its never and hasn't started yet but it shouldn't be this hard to kick over.
any help is appreciated at this point.

update...
took pressure plate, fibers and steels off, shifted trans thru all gears up and down with tire moving and that's all fine.
while spark plug was out and stuff still out, I kicked it over with my hand and it moved like it should.
put spark plug back in and issue is right back like its a compression timing issue...so I popped valve cover off again. and everything is still on time and the decomp is working
I wonder if my timing is still a tooth off cause another 07 owner needed the hash mark to be above the arrow on the cam tower
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ok. went back out and adjusted the timing a tooth up past what it was, raising the hash mark up above the arrow mark. that didn't help out any.
ripped the head off to see if the piston is touching the head, nope, its in the hole. this just makes no sense and theres no reason to all this.

I just put a head on an 05 bike and had no issues starting it with shoes on, I cant kick this bike with shoes and my foot still hurts.

Welcome to the site !!

So you verified the de-compressor was working while kicking it over and it engaged , but it was still hard to kick ?? , if with the plug in , the kicking is a little harder then i would guess its working as it should , if its real hard to kick , then its not working , I find it hard to kick over any 4 stroke with Tennis Shoes , it usually hurts the arch of my foot without some kind of arch support in the shoe/boot (normal shoes not MX boots) if i kick more than just a few times , it did it when my bike had 11-1 compression and it does it about the same with 12.5-1 compression , not really much difference in kick feel , with the de-compressor not working , its like kicking over a old Harley , it will kick back if you don't give a full hard kick , so i am thinking it is working

Take a large rubber band and bind the de-compressor so it won't move (wrap it a few times so its really keeping it from working) , then kick it and see if its worse , it should be , this will determine if the de-compressor is actually working or not

Don't forget there is a timing alignment mark on the clutch side as well , under the big round plug to the rear of the water pump

I usually just browse the site, but had to join since I'm stumped.
the timing was set up with flywheel and finding top dead center and the cam....using the dot on the ride side of the bike is worthless for 07-08
you are correct about the decompression pieces all working...ive kicked it over with my hand and watched the decompression piece stay out and open the exhaust valves. then I put the plug back in and it still works but its like it isn't opening far enough..
when I took the pin out of the old cam, I had to use a punch and hammer cause it was worn and mushroomed but came out. (I'm use to earlier decompression adjuster where you adjust it and its right and it works) I went to the Honda shop today and ordered a new pin and wont be in til Friday...me and a friends thoughts are the pin is worn cause its prolly original from 07 and isn't allowing the valves to open far enough.
I measured the pin height .027 from base circle and subtract my valve lash .011 to maybe .012 max and that's .015 which the adjustable 05trx is .021 and 05 crf is .025 so I think its way off from where it should be
any of this make sense? thanx for the insight.

and I think it should be able to be kicked over with a normal shoe on cause I just did one the 05 bike last week and kicked it over with my under armour shoes on no problem. my trx450 kicked over with shoes on easy too and that motor was built the same as this one.

Yea the only way you can use the older adjustable de-comp adjuster is to use a older style cam that matches the de-comp year

The pin would be a issue , you could change the tower to the adjustable rocker type (with the appropriate cam) and not have to worry about it anymore , i do know that on the adjustable one , even just 1mm-2mm difference will change how hard the kicking is by a lot

yeah even the smallest adjustment will make a difference on the kicker. all I have is older trx450r adjustable cams/cam towers and the cam timing is way off. so I cant use them.
new pin will be here Friday and ill try again. worse case ill adjust the valve clearance from .011 to .006 just to see if it makes a difference. its the least I can try if a new pin doesn't work or make it better.

keep us posted on the results when you get it back together

well took your advice after the brain fart I had the other day, went thru the box of parts from another bike and you cant use trx stuff or you cant use the cam gear. need crf gear, its larger.

I stuck on an 05 cam holder and cam and manual decompression adjuster and adjusted it right and it kicked over 10 times better. I can do it with shoes on like I knew I could.

so my issue was the auto decompression pin (maybe shaft) was messed up. I'm sticking to the early one, less prone to problems.

Glad it worked out , either way , as long as it works that's whats important !!

gotta add to it that you also need the 02-06 valve cover also. 07-08 doesn't have the extra side clearance for the decomp assembly. trx cover isn't big enough for the cam gear of a crf.

theres all the info for anyone who wants to do the swap

Good to know !! , i was not aware there was a difference from 02-08 on the valve cover , only the cam and towers ....

yeah they need a good sticky post on the differences from the 02-06 and 07-08 and 09+. ive learned theres a lot of differences and ive only owned the bike maybe 6 months.