hey guys

Unfortunately my L5T kickstarter has seen better days

the splines are toast on both, seems I can find kickstarts but havent been able to find any NOS shafts,

anyone have a decent fix or know of where I might be able to find a replacement shaft?

luckily there are plenty of kickstart engagement dogs floating around on ebay.

someone obviously kicked the heck out of this thing trying to get it going haha



cheers

Ed

Three different solutions if replacement shafts are simply unavailable....
1) machine shop builds up material with weld and hobbs out new grooves.
2) get some other model kickstart and shaft, cut off spline sections drill each end and press a pin to align them then fill in with weld.
3) cheapest solution is weld your kickstarter to shaft. If you need to remove in future grind weld out

I had a 73 LT3 100 enduro with damaged splines on the shaft. I took a sharp file and did my best to restore the grooves on the shaft. Then put on a new kick starter. Put a high strength through bolt with a nut on the end. Kept it very tight, and it lasted.

When I see damaged teeth like that I wonder if it is caused by kicking technique. You should take up all the slack in the kick starting system so the gears and all are not subject to impact forces but are just pushed through the motion. If that makes sense.

Leave out the kick idler gear that meshes with the broken gear & just use the electric start. With gear levers that have stripped splines i've drilled straight in at the overlap of lever & shaft so you get half the circle in the lever & half in shaft. Then threaded to 6mm & screw in a high tensile allen head bolt. Might've even done that on my HT1 kick start which would be the same size as your L5.

Thanks guys

I’ve ordered a new dog gear. I might file in some grooves and then install a roll pin as well. I have no intention of using the kickstart the starter works brilliantly but seeing as the engine is being pulled down I wanted to fix whatever I could.

The previous owner kicked it to death with no spark.

shame the axles aren’t available. I have half a mind to see what an engineer would charge. Probably a few hundred.

Shame.

Just went through the exact same deal with my LT3 100.
Just buy an overpriced kick starter shaft and replace the part, that's the correct way.
Or, just grind and drill a big hole that you can cut some threads in and jam a big ugly bolt in the kick start lever with the now really trashed shaft.
The splines are so small that trying to cut them back in may or may not work, hey just weld it on like they do in Asia on you tube.
The splines are tiny compared to all the other enduros so after 50 years, yeah they need a new part or re-engineered with a torch.
You can find a new kick shaft shaft on ebay with the part number and some patience as I did, they do exist but $$$$
Or, if you're cheap just push start it.

Another thing you can do is to clean the splines on the shaft and on the lever with a file, then cut some material from the slot where the pinch bolt goes (use a die grinder or double up hacksaw blades). This allows you a little extra pinch. I've done this with kickstart levers and shift levers and it works! Hope this helps.

I have not actually found a L5t kickstarter shaft for sale online otherwise I would have considered buying it.

oh wait there is one in europe for $500 that is absurd.

for the record I got the bike with the welded kickstart shaft, I am trying to find a good solution to fix it. I may buy a new kickstart because they are cheap and try recutting the splines and using a bolt with nut and see if that works thanks for all your input guys!

maybe one day a l5t kickstart shaft will turn up