Stock Bent levers from a bad day and how to unbend it

2daMax

Active Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2015
Messages
675
Location
Penang, Malaysia
Thought I share how to unbend the brake or clutch levers if you happen to have a bad day. My bad day came. Bike moved forward as it was parked on a slight decline and as I was putting on the Givi box to its top rack. The side stand folded and down goes the bike onto the tarmac. Bent the clutch lever, and the gear shifter was slightly bend. Rode it to work anyway but that bent lever made it hard to clutch down. BTW, lifting up this bike isn't a real problem.

Found some videos of people fixing bent levers. One guy uses a pipe as leverage to unbend it but the lever broke off. Then he proceeded to grind down the sharp edges and convert it to a shorty. Not for me.

Then I read on some metallurgy methods and it worked. Here is how it is done. I heated up the lever over an open flame on a stove for about 90 secs. I need to target 650F but I have no idea what temperature tat was at 90 secs, but so that you know, 90 secs is good enough. Then drop it into room temp water. Once it cools down, use a mallet and a piece of wood as a working top (so as not to scratch the lever). Hammer the ball end with the mallet until the desired shape is satistfied.

the lever looks like it hasn't had an accident. The forced bending strain hardens the Aluminum, so what was made soft by the annealing process is now harden up. Al age hardens over time. if you happen to anneal it and have no time to form it, place it in a freezer as this slows down the aging process.
 
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