The word is out now that I am making my Velo start with just the push of a button. I have created an electric starter assembly that consists of an automotive reduction starter that utilizes a gear drive and lever engaging mechanism to rotate a ring gear mounted on a Nippon Denso alternator unit attached to the engine drive side main shaft. The unit fits in the same position as the stock dynamo and pulley drive arrangement and is physically just slightly larger than the stock system. The whole assembly requires no modification to a stock Velo other than the removal of a threaded stud on the primary chaincase cover. This modification is totally reversible without even marring the paint. The total assembly weighs just five pounds more than the original dynamo setup and with its cover on looks very close to a stock Velo.

To give you some background on the development of this electric start I will start by saying that this endeavour is totally the result of meeting Paul Zell at the 1999 VOCNA rally in Idaho. My wife, Vivian, mounted on my '47 KSS for her first venture on an old British bike saw this very ugly brown Venom, aptly named the Turd, owned by Paul had an electric starter. "You have to make me one of those " she says as I kick start her mount before proceeding to start mine. Of course on the occasion or two when she stalled the bike and I would have to come to the rescue I would hear this phase repeated with a great deal more emphasis. The seed was planted. I developed a plan to build a starter. The first obstacle was to develop a belt drive system that would help me eliminate the cush drive unit, a real obstacle in building an electric start Velo. I designed a belt drive using a new chevron patterned toothed belt that was far stronger than the standard straight toothed belts and at the same time I designed a clutch that uses Yamaha R-1 clutch plates. I sent the belt drive to Paul to see if it could withstand the power of his famous 709cc Thruxton. Paul proceeded to pop wheelies at will with the belt drive so I knew I could move on to the next phase, the electric start. By the way if you haven't seen a Thruxton pop and hold a wheelie I suggest you ask Paul to post the video on the VOCNA website.

Building an electric starter for a motorcycle is not an easy task let alone that you are trying to fit one on a motorcycle that was never designed to have one. Lets start by saying I built more than one electric starter to get to the final design. Paul pointed out that several obstacles must be overcome to have a successful design. The design must deal with events like engine backfiring and prolonged engagement where the engine starts and revs up while the starter is still engaged. Engine backfiring is a traumatic event for an electric starter because the starter is trying to turn the engine in one direction when all of a sudden the backfire rapidly tries to turn the engine in the other. A safety mechanism must be incorporated to somehow disengage the two opposing forces. In the event that this mechanism fails to work properly the weaker of the two elements, in this case the starter and starter drive, will suffer a very quick demise. Prolonged engagement can also be problematic if the starter drive mechanism does not disengage quickly after the engine starts. If the engine fires and revs up it can spin up the starter and its drive mechanism into stratospheric speeds with as you can predict, dire consequences. Most modern motorcycles use various forms of over-running clutches which can be adapted but a problem occurs on adapting to a Velo because these over-running clutches are normally oil bathed. Although most will agree that there should be no problem having a Velo do external oiling, in fact the area where these clutches need to be mounted is one of the few places that even a very leaky Velo seems to be barren of oil.

My first design was similar in concept to the electric start that Paul built. I quickly learned about the pitfalls of putting a starter on a Velo when a minor backfire rendered six months work a pile of scrap in mere seconds. After this major disaster an auto mechanic friend suggested I look at using a reduction starter from an automobile. These units incorporate a bendix drive which quickly disengages the starter in the event of a backfire and they also incorporate an over-running clutch to deal with the problem of prolonged engagement. Wow two of the most challenging aspects of using an electric starter were already dealt with so now all I had to do was concentrate on the coupling of the starter motor to the engine. The resulting design is a starter that works very much like a car starter with a drive pinion that engages to a ring gear that is mounted on an alternator rotor housing which is mounted directly on the engine drive side shaft. To start the engine the drive pinion shifts into engagement with the ring gear and disengages when the engine starts and the starter button is released. This involved using a gear train to transfer the rotating motion from the starter to the drive pinion and a lever mechanism that engages and disengages the drive pinion with the ring gear. The starter motor is 1.4 kw unit used on Honda Accords and will easily crank the engine over at about 200 to 300 rpm without the use of any compression release.

My prototype unit was mounted on a freshly built 1954 MSS (with 9.5:1Clubman spec motor), 35mm Amal MK2, and Boyer electronic ignition that was built specifically for my wife. As you can see from the engine spec this would be a handful to kick over by a dyed in the wool kick-start man so the e-start had to work and work every time. As those at the Centenary rally can attest the e-start worked well and Vivian was just loving the independence that e-start gave her. The starter turned the engine over effortlessly and the rapid cranking speed resulted in instant starts. During initial testing I started the bike many times eventually foully the plug which then resulted in many kickbacks. The bendix system worked as it should disengaging the drive gears with no damage done to any components. The only issue that came up on the prototype was the result of my use of an unhardened mild steel ring gear which burred over on the tooth edges from the engagement of the drive pinion. The burrs restricted the drive pinion engagement with the result of some grinding sounds when the starter was engaged. This wasn't a concern because my intention was to harden the gears after all bugs were worked out. As it turned out this was the main issue.

At this years rally in Oregon saw three Velos arrived sporting my electric starters. The new versions have all gears hardened and some minor modifications that make it easier to assemble and mount. I should mention that my intention was only to make a few starters mainly for my own use but as the word got out about my prototype last year I have been contacted by several club members that are having difficulty starting their bikes. I made an initial batch of ten units that sold very quickly and I intend to make another small batch but this is something that I do when I can fit it into my engineering and manufacturing company's schedule. These assemblies get low priority when the shop is fully loaded so it does take some time to get a batch ready.