Kickstarter Shaft

While I was on holiday I fitted a new kickstarter shaft to my motorbike. This is the old one. I snapped the part that sticks out of the gearbox, hence the need for a new one. When I was fitting it a few weeks ago I thought it all seemed a bit tight. Silly me, I have lost my manual and I forgot to take photos as I went. Mind you, I think it was assembled wrong in the first place. I just couldn't see how the automatic decompression lever worked in with the gear.

That was a week and a half ago.

Then I woke up at 3am this morning and started thinking about it all and decided that I had probably assembled the thing wrong, but how could I work out the right way without the manual. So, I pulled it all to pieces again this morning and after lengthy thought and inspection I noticed this little green line painted on the inside of the shaft. I had actually noticed it before but elected at the time to ignore it. This green line needs to line up with a sprung lever on the gear. I tried it all out and bingo, the whole thing works and the automatic decompression is clearly engaging when I kick the bike over. Yay!

Unfortunately I can't just jump on and ride. One of the bolt holes in the block is threaded. The hole is aluminium and the bolt is hardened steel with a little nic out of it which has rounded out the hole. So I have ordered a new bolt and bought a tap to try and revitalize the thread on the hole. I have to wait till Friday for the new bolt.

All that before I started work at midday.

Worth blipping I thought because it was a significant part of my day and not much else interesting has happened.