Anybody here have a welder, vice and like beer/cash? (Bent centre stand)

**xwhatsit** · 5th September 2008, 16:03

Hihi,

A while ago when my bike was hard to start I was doing the silly thing of putting the bike on the centre-stand, standing on the left footpeg and starting the bike with my right leg like that. Easier to start -- but it eventually killed my centre stand.

I was planning on stealing the stand off my other wrecked RS, but the pin is seized in there and I'd need a blowtorch/angle grinder I reckon

Getting a used stand is $100+! Stuff that!

So I reckon the stand I've got is fixable. It's bent so the bike doesn't sit flat any more; I think there's mebbe a cracked weld or something, or perhaps the metal has actually torn/ripped. At any rate, provided I don't stand on the bike like I was, it's not really under much stress, so a dodgy rough and ready weld and bend will do the trick just fine.

Can anybody help me here? Thanks.

**mouldy** · 5th September 2008, 16:54

I may have a spare centre stand that I pulled off mine , I,ll have a look when I get home

**xwhatsit** · 5th September 2008, 17:11

Cheers mate! Although I reckon you're mad to pull it off in the first place

**paturoa** · 5th September 2008, 20:10

If you want to wait a week I can help you. (I'm off to the cold kiwi this weekend)

**driftn** · 5th September 2008, 21:16

Originally Posted by xerxesdaphat

Cheers mate! Although I reckon you're mad to pull it off in the first place

First thing I did to mine was rip it off. Just got in the way. especialy going over the wainui hill (three lane twisty off camber road in welly)

**McJim** · 5th September 2008, 21:19

Just leave it off and buy a paddock stand. On a bike like yours it's probably stealing about 20% of your power to drag that extra piece of pig iron around.

**geoffm** · 5th September 2008, 21:23

Come aroudn and we can deal to it. PM me
Geoff

**racefactory** · 5th September 2008, 22:49

I have a welder if you still need one mate.

**xwhatsit** · 5th September 2008, 23:47

Originally Posted by driftn

First thing I did to mine was rip it off. Just got in the way. especialy going over the wainui hill (three lane twisty off camber road in welly)

I'm still yet to scrape mine -- the pegs touch down far before, even the pipes look like they'd touch first. Then again I've got max preload on the rear, lowered front end with clipons, so perhaps the extra front weight bias helps other bits to touch down first?

If Mouldy hasn't got an extra one I'll get in touch with one of you nice chaps

Thanks for the offers!

@MucJaem: It's actually quite a light piece of kit, much lighter than the headlight mount/instrument cluster I ripped off a while back. Paddock stand is all very well, but it's so useful to be able to park your bike upright around the place, or put it on the stand and a bag of cement on the pillion seat so you can pull the front forks/wheel off for maintenance.

**Squiggles** · 6th September 2008, 11:48

Meh, i broke mine off, so i just lean it up against things.... Will have to bolt on a sidestand somehow...

**twinkle** · 6th September 2008, 16:36

I have a welder and a vice too

and several nice shiny hammers

**Ixion** · 6th September 2008, 18:17

Welder vice and such like here if you need them

**KiwiRat** · 8th September 2008, 11:27

What those other guys said............

**xwhatsit** · 12th September 2008, 02:07

Alright, all done, thanks heaps Mouldy!

One interesting thing -- I think I know how you guys were scraping your stands all the time. The non-electric start RSs (i.e. nearly all of the ones sold in NZ) have sort of a prong on the centre stand to make it easy to flick down. Unfortunately this prong holds the centre stand further away from the little rubber pad on the LHS exhaust, meaning it's down a lot closer to the ground. The later electric start models omitted this prong, meaning it's up a lot flatter and the exhausts look like they'd touch first (more likely, the pegs will stop bending up and ground out).

I've got an electric start frame (kick-start engine and everything else got put into it back in the 80s -- either that or it's some strange inbetween leftover-parts model -- fibreglass body panels too, weird); Mouldy's centre stand was off an earlier model. Ended up hacksawing off the offending piece.

As a side note -- how are you supposed to get the spring back onto the stand? That was possibly the most frustrating hour I've ever spent on that bike. Ended up, on a tip I got from teh interweb, using an old clutch cable to sort of pull it on. One end tied to the frame, the looped through the spring and the stand and then me pulling on the other end, using it like a pulley to winch it into place. Still a bitch of a job, though.