Engine Trouble Bent Shaft, not sure what the name of the shaft is. Help?

[DanTheDIYGuy]

Hi,

My pull starter jammed when I was starting my engine this morning and the full force of my pull went into a shaft that I believe would be the crankshaft. This bent the shaft way out of alignment and I had to tear down my bike and pull the engine off to fix it. I have a picture of the shaft in question, I am having trouble finding this part online because I don't know its name. I'm hoping I can get a high quality steel replacement part instead of the chinesium part that comes stock with the engine.

I so far can only find a replacement crank with shaft, are these one piece? If this is the case, I'm not sure if I even want to buy a new crank. I may just try to save some effort and buy a new engine instead and keep this one for parts.

I am also wondering if anyone else has had this problem with the pull starter, and if I should not reinstall a pull starter on the engine when I put the bike back together. Maybe if there is some sort of electric start option out there, I could use that instead. Thanks in advance!

 

[crassius]

hard to believe the crankshaft is bent

everyone I've known with a pull start has had problems with it

that rotor in the pic is seated on the tapered end of the shaft and if you take it off, you may be able to reseat it straight again

 

[DanTheDIYGuy]

Thanks Crassius. I would not have thought of that. I'll give it a try and let y'all know what happens.

 

[DanTheDIYGuy]

Shaft is definitely bent. Not the rotor being mis-seated. So that pretty much confirms that I need to either buy a new shaft/crank or buy a better engine. I am leaning towards buying an American made CNC milled 66cc instead of fixing my Chinese 48cc.

Here's something I learned from another site. Use this to pull the rotor off the shaft. It's only $10 at Ace Hardware. Worked like a charm

 

[crassius]

often, just sticking a sewing needle into slot to keep woodruff key from binding on magnet laminations will let rotor slide right off