Bending springs

The new stainless spring for my Commando center stand fouls the stand itself where it hooks on the gearbox cradle . The top radius on the stand on the left side acts as a cam and pushes on the end of the spring tang and tries to unseat the spring when retracting the stand. If I can bend the tang upwards it may clear .
Is it safe to bend it a bit ? I should think that it being a spring it should nut suffer fatigue from this little bend . Anyone care to weigh in on this ?
Thanks- RT

It should be OK to bend the tang have done this with a few springs in my life and have had no problems with the spring after.

Ashley

Richard Tool said:

The top radius on the stand on the left side acts as a cam and pushes on the end of the spring tang and tries to unseat the spring when retracting the stand.

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A similar thing has been mentioned before and was the stand causing the problem, not the spring.
https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/centre-stand-spring-problem.27052/

Also, ensure the bolt (head) is on the inside of the cradle.

Is this an early ('68-'70) frame mounted stand or the later ('71-up) cradle mounted one?

Recently I had the same issue on a '72. You can cut off the part of the spring that contacts the centerstand; mark the length first, be conservative, better to cut twice. I reduced the width of the bolt on my lathe; the bolt head, as mentioned above, is on the inside of the cradle.

The stainless spring, mine at least, has the two hooks at a bit of a different clock position than the black spring that came with the centerstand kit. Attach the spring to the cross member of the stand then to the cradle, have both bushings greased as well as the holes where the bushings mount, have the bolts, lock nuts and washers at the ready.

Have an assistant ready to insert the bolts, get behind the bike and start pulling, be careful not to scratch the paint work.

Best

Thanks all for the help . It seems there are several issues . The worst is the hole in the cradle that accepts the end of the spring has become elongated. Had I known this would be a problem I woul have had it welded up , too late for that now without total disassembly. Indeed I had the pivot bolts in backwards so I will turn them round and can face the head of the left side one if needed. I dug up the original spring and will try it but it has a notch worn in the bottom hook so it can’t be trusted.
I can also reduce the radius on the end of the stand .

Ron L said:

Is this an early ('68-'70) frame mounted stand or the later ('71-up) cradle mounted one?

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My apologies Ron for this late response to your post - don’t know how I missed it but I did - old age maybe.
It is a 72 with the stand mounted on cradle. The stand itself is the later ,stronger type - the original failed at a weld as they were prone to do and sent the Commandos tach through the fairing of my brothers Ducati .
I believe I have the problem on the run now. Reversing the bolts, tweaking the bend on the cradle end of the spring and grinding a new profile on stand radius seems to be clearing up the problem.
The worst aspect is unhooking and then re hooking the spring .

Richard Tool said:

My apologies Ron for this late response to your post - don’t know how I missed it but I did - old age maybe.
It is a 72 with the stand mounted on cradle. The stand itself is the later ,stronger type - the original failed at a weld as they were prone to do and sent the Commandos tach through the fairing of my brothers Ducati .
I believe I have the problem on the run now. Reversing the bolts, tweaking the bend on the cradle end of the spring and grinding a new profile on stand radius seems to be clearing up the problem.
The worst aspect is unhooking and then re hooking the spring .

Click to expand...

The worst aspect is buying a Motion Pro spring puller and misplacing it for four months. How is that possible. There is only about three feet between my motorcycle lift and the tool chest. Good luck Rick. Ben

All good now - tweaking spring tang and re profiling top left radius on side stand did the trick . Thanks all for the help- RT