worn splines on gearshift shaft

[waigyuk]

Hey man

I've just bought a 1989 cr250 for a bit of fun at the weekends.
It hasn't been particularly well looked after and the gear lever was originally welded on.
I removed the weld and lever and noticed the gear shaft splines are not too great looking.
Does anyone have any simple or ingenious ideas for a permanent fix for this.
I've read all the threads concerning worn levers and I have a steel lever on my 1985 kx500, but the worn shaft splines would rule out the steel lever fix.
I'm well prepared to grind, drill or reshape the shaft before resorting to a full engine stripdown to replace the shaft.
Woodroffe key? Pin through lever and shaft?

Cheers man

Craig

 

[Danman]

You can clean them up with a triangular file. They are not that hard to replace if you are menchanicaly inclinded and it sounds like you maybe. I was able to get to mine with removing only the clutch cover. The part was about 40 bucks. Mine broke inturnaly. Once the cover was off I just cleaned the end of the shaft were the shift lever attaches and the slid it out the other side (clutch side). I installed the spring and spacer on it and then slid the new on in and and lined up the gears that work the shift drum rachet.

Good luck.

 

[CR 250 MXer]

The splines on my kickstarter shaft were pretty loose, so I put the lever on with lock-tite. It snugged the loose lever right up.

 

[Jh85]

Band-Aid on a bullet wound

Try cutting a wider slot at the lever end (female spline) just a little bit with a hacksaw. Should give it a liiittle more oummph when you tighten it down. A bit of lock tite probably wouldn't hurt either :D

On my Xr all I would have to do is pull of the clutch cover to replace the shaft, no splitting the cases required, I think :think:

 

[2stroke]

ditto on that. With my KX250, and just about every bike Ive ever gotten into, you need only pull the clutch cover.(engine is left in the frame) THe worst you do after that is pull the face plate off the shifter drum (one bolt), just pay attention to how the springs are seated.
OR----back in the day, riding with the rest of the neighborhood punks, we had a quick fix for this problem---VISE GRIPS! heh heh....just clamp em on and go! (seriously, we had an old XT350 and ran it that way for 3 months!) Ahh the memories.... :)

 

[waigyuk]

Hey Man

Thanks for the replies guys.
I got myself a manual for the bike today and you are right enough, I only need take the clutch out to get to the shaft.
I've already tried making the gap in the lever wider with a hacksaw, but that only lasted about half an hour.
I'm going to try the triangular file thing first, some loctite on the shaft, and drilling the threaded part of the lever so I can put a strong bolt straight through with a nut (the bolt was bending after hacksawing the gap wider).
If that doesn't work it will have to be a new shaft and steel lever.
Thanks again for the quick response, I'll have to check out this forum regularly.

Cheers man
Craig