Motorcycle Repair: kickstart failure, hydraulic lifters, harley evo

Question
Hello Bill,
I'll get right to it.  I took my 1991 custom  Harley, evo engine, outta the garage today to introduce it to the new riding season.  It's kickstart with open primary.  I tried kicking it several times, putting all my weight (175)pounds on the kicker, but it wouldn't start.  No problem I thought.  What else to expect if it hasn't been ridden all winter.  So I take a 20 second break, then try again.  But now when I jump on the kicker, it turns needing only 20% of the force that usually is required to kickstart the sucker.  So I figured that somehow, I was not able to get any compression.  I looked at the primary and it would turn just fine with every kick, but there was no compression going on.  I could pump the kickstart with my arm and turn the crank. That's not normal.  How did this all of a sudden happen.  I figure the problem is a valve.  Could of the timimg chain somehow slipped?  Could it be a gasket?  Please help if you can. Could it be anything other than a compression issue?  I kicked the sucker over probably 100 times.  No combustion whatsoever.

Answer
Remi,  "MrHonda" isn't going to have a lot of H-D specific info to share with you about your woes. Bikes are bikes and engines are engines, so I can speculate on a few possibilities here...

First, did you prep the bike for winter, by draining the fuel or filling the tank with gasoline with Sta-bil or other fuel stablizers? If the answer is no to the previous question then probably the fuel system is clogged with old fuel and varnish, because today's fuels evaporate quickly and leave a lot of gunk behind in the carburetor.

My understanding of H-D products is that they are primarily a gear driven, pushrod actuated valve train. with hydraulic lifters. No timing chains....

At this point, I could surmise that perhaps a hydralic lifter has pumped up and is not allowing the valves to close. A compression test will show if there is compression loss or not. A LEAKDOWN test will tell where the loss is coming from... head gasket, valves, rings, etc.

You do need to baseline the engine... clean fuel system, new spark plugs, check for good spark (at the right time) and check compression against specs.

That's about all I have to share about this question...

Bill MrHonda Silver