I am looking for a clean good looking kickstand mod to shorten my kickstand for when supermoto wheels are on. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Stock smr kickstand....its worth the 90$ or whatever the hell it is. Same with the SMR fender. 2 Pieces that will be hard to get in years to come. Its quite difficult to shorten the TE cast aluminum kickstand...I would just cut it down, drill and tap it and put a metal pad with a stud welded on it. Screw that into the kickstand. Pictures are not as good as your imagination
Word of advice , DO NOT GO with a stock 610 kick stand. First day riding , kickstand broke while i was focusing on a shot. Picture says a thousand words, well I has a few choice ones. here's your picture!
Just had the kick stands shortened, cost was $60 for both, took 2 inches out works perfect, wrapped one with red rim tape not sure if I like it. Can't see the welds looks just like stock, good welder.
I would recommend having just the bottom tip end cut off and shorten the length as needed and have the end itself welded back on by a competent Tig welder. The heat affected zone will be minimized and the original parts "T6" heat treating will be less compromised on the part itself. If someone tries cutting and then splicing it mid point down its length. It will become dead soft aluminum "T4" from this and will likely bend in this area with much less pressure than the original heat treated kick stand would have required. Aluminum welds and melts at about 1214 degrees fahrenheit. You can anneal a piece of heat treated "T6" aluminum to "T4" dead soft, workable or shapable condition at a temperature of approximately 450 to 500 degrees. Think about it. There is quite abit of leverage on the kickstand at times when used. Just a thought.
That's what my welder suggested. He cut tips off cut 2 inches out and welded the tip back on. He then ground down the welds and sand blasted it. You can't even tell the kick stands were even modified. His only issue was if I crash on that side and hit the kickstand pretty hard it may pop the foot off. He told me if that happens he will just weld it back on...
If you find or recover the piece that may break off? Will he weld it back on and do it for free. Since it was his suggestion. That doesn't sound like a measure of any confidence. Unless thats his way of giving a verbal guarantee. Much of the strength of a Aluminum butt weld in a situation like this even if its only up about a half inch or less from the actual tip end lies in the crown of the weld itself. Grinding it away even for cosmetic reasons if that was requested is not necassary and may very well be the cause of that future break or fracture and will be the weak point. If it in fact occurs or fractures from stress later. A good Aluminum Tig Welder will leave his weld as is. 99% of the grinding/cutting should happen during the weld prep prior to that weld being made. By the way grinding embeds carborundum or what ever abrasive is used into the parent metal which will then be a contaminant leaving behind inclusions in that weld. Aluminum ideally must be cut with a carbide burr to stop this grinding/smearing process from happening as mentioned above. There are good metal finishers and there are good tig welders. Hopefully you can find, or have found one who is both. Look, I'm not dissing the guys skills but he should be able to assure you that it will not break off at all if the weld is done correctly at the extreme tip end. No matter what you do to it. The entire length of the kickstand shaft could be wrapped up with a wet rag to keep it cool during the welding process. Thereby reducing the heat input up into the shaft and this will keep the kickstands heat affected zone from the weld down to a minimum at the tip. Heat treatment of the kickstand component should then be only minimally affected. Aluminum happens to be an excellent conductor of heat. So heat travels through it quickly and thats not good for the integrity of heat treated parts getting welded.
grinding the weld smooth was at my request. i wanted it to look as if nothing had been done to it. the welder i used said, "its aluminum it may break at the weld if you hit it hard enough". he wouldnt/couldnt gurantee it for life but said if it ever breaks at his weld spot he would fix it at no cost. time will tell if im gonna have issues...sure looks great and its nice not to have the bike at its balance point anymore. the welder guy was an older gentlemen..65 ish, seemed to know quite a bit, been in business here in my area for over 30 years. hopefully it out lasts the bike....
