RENEWED ENTHUIASM?

Back in November  2011 I had started to think about the fitting of the kick start leaver.  Was the original shaft really as bad as I thought? I had a go at fitting the leaver to the shaft and tried to tighten the pinch bolt.  No matter how hard I tried I couldn't stop the leaver moving on the shaft.  This wouldn't do and to cut the leaver to help improve the grip was not acceptable as it would potentially destroy a good kick start leaver.

I reluctantly came to the conclusion that the shaft should be changed (something that should have happened during the rebuild of the engine).  Patrick agreed to send me a new shaft (£36) so I could check that it fitted on my leaver, if no better than the original one I could return the new shaft and decide what to do next.  As soon as it arrived I fitted it to the leaver and was relieved to find it fitted much better 

original shaft

Not too surprising when you look at the difference between the splines at the end of the shafts.  The old one has certainly seen better days

new shaft

Having shown that it would be worth fitting a new shaft it only remained to fit it.