Droopy kickstart lever TY175 - help.

[markrossetto]

All,

I am hoping for some more help with my TY175C. The kickstart lever and shaft falls/rotates down under its own weight when in transport or riding around. Its like the return spring does not have enough guts to spring it back up.

Do I need a new coil spring or do I need to do something to preload the spring a bit more?

Kind regards, Mark.

[David Lahey]

Mark
You have not said if it is something that just happened or if the bike was like that when you got it. If you got it like that, then it is possible that the kickstart shaft has been assembled into position without enough preload on the spring.
If it is something that just happened, sometimes the forwards-rotation stop slips on the shaft and causes a bit of mischief (high risk of holing the casing).
Either way you will need to take the clutch cover off and see what has gone wrong.
David

[markrossetto]

Yes, sorry, the kickstart lever has been like that since I got the bike.
I have the cover off, but couldn't see anything obvious and couldn't rotate the spring another whole rotation as this seemed way too tight. In the state it is in the spring doesn't have much preload on it - so I think the problem may be the stop has slipped on the shaft.
What position should the stop be set? Currently with the Kickstart shaft in the return position the hole which locates the spring in the shaft is at 3:00 (approx).

By the way the colour scheme on your TY looks pretty good. I was toying for ages about which colours to paint mine but ended up just keeping with the original (bit boring maybe).
Mark.

[David Lahey]

I can't remember what position it should sit at, but I do know that if you can't get the inner spring end far enough round to get it into the hole in the inner case, it is likely that your stop has rotated on the shaft. Have a close look at the attachment of the stop to the shaft and you might see where it has moved from. I've heard that some people get the stop back in position and then weld it in place but I've not done it myself yet. I would guess that if there was about 1/4 turn of preload with the stop touching that would be enough to hold it there.
The shaft is available from Yamaha as a spare part for about $100 and they sometimes pop up on eBay.
Thanks for the positive feedback about the paint scheme. That bike has had so many different paint schemes since 1976 that I can only remember about half of them, and I do love the standard B model look, but wanted something slightly different this time. The other options that just missed out were:
Suzuki RL250 paint scheme - just for a bit of fun
TY250A paint scheme - and then see how many people I could convince it was a TY175A!

[markrossetto]

With the cover off i put the kickstart lever back on the shaft and then preloaded the spring, by hand, until it had enough torque to lift the lever back to home position. 1/4 turn of preload looks about right to me too. I'll reposition the stop and check again.

wow - thanks again for the help. The internet makes it too easy. The blokes who restored bikes without the internet must have been like the early explorers.

Mark.