Hi all,my kickstart on my 04 sherco is bent slightly,and its getting a pain to start because my boot keeps slipping off.Whats the best way to straighten it,can you use heat on alluminium?,I`m not sure.Can any body help?

Cheers

My experience with these is not good. You might try heating slightly with a hair drier to basically cold work it a bit. It appears to me the alloy is heat treated to attain its strength. If you heat it much, it will anneal and loose its strength, worse than before!

Wish for better news!

remove kickstart ,get a bar of soap and rub it on the part that needs bent ,heat with a propane torch like roofers or plumbers use until the soap goes brown and then straighten it when the heat is still in it

I have had very good success with the cast aluminium brake pedal on a Beta. Bending "work hardens" aluminium and heating followed by slow cooling softens it. The trick is to find the right temperature for softening. I believe that is what the soap trick listed above does. (burn off temperature = softening temperature) I have used an acetelene torch in the same way. You can use a very "rich" torch setting to coat the aluminium with black soot. Then use a standard setting to burn the soot off. It would then be soft and ready for bending within reason. My Beta pedal was bent into a U shape so I used two or three heating then bending steps to get it back to straight. I have also heard you can coat with black magic marker and then burn off but I have not tried that.