Side Stand Failure

I had just ridden in from Morwell and parked the bike in the IGA car park at Hazelwood Village. Did a shop and walked out to the bike and put the key in the ignition. The next thing I know the bike just falls to the ground. Thank goodness for the Crash Bars or there really would have been some damage.

I had a couple of men come over and help me as I did look like I needed a bit of help. I lifted the bike up myself and was trying to work out what happened when the men came across. The side stand was underneath the cylinder head looking very sad for itself. With a little bit of help from my foot I managed to get it back enough to just make enough room to manipulate the gear lever. On the ground were the two springs and the plate the holds the springs. Looks like that's what gave way. Maybe something small like a circlip gave way. The only other damage was the rear indicator lens but not the indicator assembly. Now that is good luck!

Started up the bike and headed for home in second gear. As I reached the foot of the driveway the sidestand switch decided to cut out the motor. Fantastic! I tried pushing the bike up the driveway but only succeeded in getting it half way up. It was just too steep. Thankfully a neighbour came home and I called out for help and was able to get the bike up to where the ground flattened out a bit. I used the handlebars to lean against the wall to hold the bike up.

It was already dark, so I was out with a flashlight to check out what had happened. The sidestand is bent up and useless and who knows what other damage there is to the swivel mechanism. I'll have to tie it back somehow so that the ignition interlock doesn't cut out the engine and ride the bike to a repairer.

Bad end to the day.

P.S. I had a similar problem on the 28/09/2004. I stopped at the Mobil Station at Officer and couldn't put the sidestand down. Might be related somehow?

A view under the foot. As can be seen there is quite a lot of wear especially on the left hand side.
Clearly the angle of the foot was not quite horizontal.

A view of the fracture.
The shiniest part at lower left was the only part holding the sidestand together after the fall.
If I'd known that on the night I would have just removed it. I just didn't want to damage anything else.

What was left on the bike. Pity the autofocus has the leaves sharp.
The assembly on the top is the ignition interlock switch.

The result of the inspection revealed that I all need to replace is the actual sidestand arm everything else seems to be just fine. This is a job I can handle myself. I'll just order the part and do it.

A week later

I had contacted BM Motorcycles and asked them to order just the sidestand and post it to me. On further investigation I discovered that the bolt that holds the sidestand on has a security star shape on the head of the bolt. I don't have anything that will fit that, so it's back to the professionals. In talking with BM Motorcycles I find that I have a two week wait as the part must be sourced from Germany. Great!

Another week later

I happened to be chatting with a salesman at Yamaha, Mildura, killing time,and manged to get to conversation on sidestands. Had he ever heard of a sidestand breaking? "No!" he replies. He then shows me just about every sidestand, including standing on a few, in the showroom and comments that they are all solid, no tubes. We next moved on to the the star driver I'd need and the difficulty in tracking one down. "No problems, just go down to Bunnings!" Was it really that easy?
As it turned out, no, it wasn't that easy. However I was able to procure at T55 posix key from Repco for $9.95 in Morwell. On the weekend I bought a ratchet spanner to suit the 3/8th socket from Bunnings. $6.80. It's a double header: 1/2 and 3/8th.
I just have to be patient now and wait for the sidestand to appear.