Busted kick-starters?

[John]

All,

Lot's of posts about broken kick-starters. I have never broken a kick-starter on my KX5 (just lost one). I have noticed one thing though:

I changed my foot-pegs from rubber pegs (road / motard type) to MX ones. After the change I have noticed that the kick-starter gets dented by the impact with the foot-peg. I can imagine that the torque that the kick starter gets when if stops dead halt on the foot peg could be enough to break it.

The rubbery foot-pegs I have are ~ 10 mm thick rubber. This is enough to protect the kick-starter from the foot peg impact. Maybe someone with a broken kick-starter could verify that this could be the cause? If it is the case, a simple fix would be a small rubber protection thingie on either the foot-peg or the kick-starter.

//John

[Torch654]

I had wondered about that myself, but I haven't broken one (yet)

[kx5ohio]

I used to break one a year.  Now I ride half as much, so I'm expecting to get two years out of the current one.  

They get sloppy at the pivot point, and that's where they fail.  I've heard that the recent kickers are stronger though.

[afritts4u]

I purched a new OEM kicker from Kaw. It is the same size and shape, however the new one has a different finish  on the area that gets smashed on the old ones that fail. It seems to be a different material than the shaft itself, and the old one, or maybee just a different finish. I have had this new one for 6 months now and it is not wearing at all!.

[kawdude]

Mine have always broke around the pivot point.  The newer OEM's are much thicker in that area.

[gwcrim]

I just broke mine yesterday.  Fortunately, it was right at the house and not down in the woods somewhere.  The pivot gave up.