removal of welded shifter lever

I know this sounds ridiculous.
I had a weird mechanic. The shifter pedal was loose....so he welded it on. Sounded like a good idea at the time, and after all, he's my mechanic, surely he'd know what he's doing....right? (I quit taking my bike to him after repeatedly having the same problem with starting...)
Now I can't remove it.
This of course means I can't access a goodly amount of my bike! I also am having a pretty severe oil leak (that he said he had fixed), and I need to access behind that plate!


I would like to know if I were to manage to break this weld, how much am I looking at replacing? And how would I break the weld in the first place? Smashing seems like it might have heavy repercussions....

I already have a new pedal lined up, but I think it's gonna be more than that. I've never done any kind of transmission work. As far as I can tell, the 'slector fork' is going to be damaged, but I don't know if I can replace that alone, or if I'm looking at more extensive work in ths area?

on another note... starting, of course, my repeat problem is that at random, the bike will try continuously to turn over until it runs outta juice, after which, it won't start again (of course after a recharge on the batt.). Right now working on the second time this has happened in a year. -- I was working on a fuel delivery issue when this happened....going to go ahead and redo carb's this week, since I've got her pretty opened up.
I'm thinking cutoff relay....or short? -- the problem started after I lifted the tank to check the filter -- Battery's good, alternator's good, starter motor's good, new plugs (hence, the carb work...)..I'm rechecking the coils this evening....fuses good, button good. Hafta admit, I haven't checked all of the switches yet. I'll do that tomorrow.

 

can you snap pictures of the weld?

 

I owned and old Honda Trail bike we welded the shifter pedal on. We needed to ge it off as well. I knew that most of the welding was done on the end of the shifter shaft. We took and angle grinder to take off the weld. It seemed to work and we then thought we could just pop that thing off. We ended up taking a saws all to the top of the shifter and then to the bottom too. We took care not to saw to far as to mess up the splines on the shaft. We then took a chisel and broke it into two pieces. We then had try our best to get the splines looking like new. That actually took awile, but we got the new one on there with a little help from a hammer. Not too hard though k? Just hope that he didn't use a hot welder like we did. It fused the pedal to the shaft under the weld quite a ways. Some welders won't penetrate as deep as we did. I guess you'll get to find out. Good luck!!!

 

That's what happens when you're lazy and use a mechanic instead of doing your own maintenance! If he welded your shifter just imagine what he may have done to your carb jets with a hammer and to the electrical system with a blow torch!

 

Grind off the weld so you can pull off the shifter arm. You'll probably then need to grind the shaft smooth so that you don't ruin the seal around the shaft when removing the cover.

From there you need to replace the shaft that the protrudes from the case (shift lever assembly).

To replace a selector fork, you have to pull the engine and tear it right apart - meaning split the cases. Once apart the selector fork is easy to change but the reassembly can be troublesome if you know little about engines. I would get the bike started before trying this.

Starting problems - you have to give more detail. It sounds as though it's flooding out, would you agree? If so, you may need to adjust the fuel mixture screws. A carb synch would also probably go along way if they haven't been done.

I hope this helps you.

 

ON the starting issue. I failed to mention that on this continuous turnover attempts, having the engine switched off and removing the key does not stop it.... It doesn't take long for the battery to run out of juice. Not even enough time to get the side cover off to disconnect it.

Right now I'm down to the ever annoying "click".

This does help.
Thanks

 

Sounds like your solenoid is sticking.

I would recommend that you try to tackle one problem at a time with assistance from the forum.

Describe how this continuous cranking starts - when you hook up the battery? When you push the start button? When you turn the key on? Does the kill switch cease the cranking?

What click? Is that relevant to the continuous cranking? More info please.

 

The above comment points me to say your problem is with the solenoid.

The solenoid is a coil of wire that becomes a magnet when the start button is pressed. A plunger is then pulled into the magnetic field and at the other end is a disk of copper that hits the two heavy contacts on the body of the solenoid. These heavy contacts are the positive lead from the battery and the black wire to the starter motor.

The plunger is pushed back via a spring when the coil is de-energized as you let go of the starter button.

Problems internally can be:
If the spring is broken the plunger won't return to a neutral mode.
If there is a dirt problem or wear and tear, the plunger won't move freely to return to a neutral mode.
The amount of amperage that arcs across the copper contacts internally can fuse the copper disk to the contacts of the body posts.

As long as that disk is against the wire contacts it's just as if you have the battery positive lead directly onto the starter motor. This will kill your battery and can burn out your starter too. The starter isn't designed for continuous running.

If the solenoid is stuck, tapping on it with the end of a screwdriver may free it up and get it to disengage.

If the internal contacts have fused together you pretty much have to replace it or take the time to tear it apart and see if they can be salvaged.

 

Get a Dremel Tool.

Get a couple of packages of Dremel High-Speed Cut-off Wafers.

Work slowly and deliberately attacking the weld until you see the outline of the shaft the Pedal was welded-on too.

Sacrifice the Pedal if necessary and it probably will be.

Make new SLOTS in the Shift Pedal opposite each other ... all the way through the portion surrounding the shift shaft.

Once you have the weld cut-away and the two new slots cut through the Pedal ... use a Cold Chisel to "Wedge" the two halves off that shaft.

Once the shaft is exposed again ... carefully remove any weld left on the shaft and "Dress" the shaft as clean as you possible can using the Dremel and Cut-off wheels as a grinder.

WEAR EYE GEAR.
The wheels cut just about anything.
But, they are thin and easily fractured!

(Welding the Pedal on the Bike was a sleazy, Mickey Mouse fix, buy a Hack with NO respect for engineering!)

 

All right.

Thank y'all for the info on the weld!

As far as the starting problem. What happens is ('cause this has been twice, now) I turn the key to on, pull in the clutch, hit the start button....
At this point, the bike starts to kick over. It doesn't catch, and it doesn't stop. I take my thumb off the button, hit the kill switch, and take out the key. The bike continues attempting to start until the battery runs out of juice.

The first time I had this happen, it did have a fried solenoid. So the first thing I did when it happened this time, is, well, I went out and bought a new solenoid....The old solenoid is fine, BTW. (checked it with a multimeter...)

After that's the click when I hit the start button.

After some more checking this weekend, the starter appears to be fried. (did the on-the-bike and the off-bike straight to battery tests...got nothin') -- that's an easy one, but why is my bike doing this? Starters aren't the cheapest part, and when I ordered that solenoid, it took 2 months to come in....I don't want to put this new part on, only to have my bike fry something else.... (damage to date:: 2 starters, 3 solenoids, 2 batteries to date)

And I HAVE learned my lesson. NO MORE MECHANICS!!!!

And I"ll probably work on the weld while I wait for the new starter...

 

You have an Ignition Switch which is not switching and a Kill Switch doing the same. That means something got wired-up backwards or its not the right part. When you turn-off the Key and remove it ... there shouldn't be power to the Starter Motor.

When the Kill Switch is set to STOP (Open), there should be NO Power down the line, from the Kill Switch, to keep the Starter Motor turning.

That's the first thing to shake-down and work-out!
The Ignition Switch is not right.
We have to find-out what's wrong with the Ignition Switch.
Somehow Ignition wiring and lighting wiring got reversed.

Did this bike have Fuse Panel work?

 

It hasn't been worked on that I can tell.

But I know that's not saying a whole helluva lot.
If work was done, the entire thing's been replaced and rewired. It looks good to me. I'll snap a pic of it tonight and y'all can tell me if that's the way it's supposed to look.

I"ll check the switch tonight as well.