You may well be right, but I would check the pawl movement carefully. The plunger and spring and therefore the pawl must move freely. Both gears in the pictures look usable to me and since if does eventually catch, I would think more about the pawl not coming out immediately from the parked position.
"I notice there looks like a lot of wear on the kick-star shaft inner bearing so I suspect that won't be helping ? Dremmel to remove ??"
There was a time when Domi was selling kick start pawls that weren't oe, and failed at an alarming rate. But that was back in the 70's as I remember.
The ratchet gear where the pawl engages in the gear was so worn it kept wearing the pawl and slipping but took 4 replacements before I even thought to think about it being the cause of the pawl wear, since replacing the KS gear I had no more problems with the pawl wearing out, 48+ years of kicking my Norton things do wear.
Yes ! Regardless of that being the problem, it won't be going back in. If you look at the last photo , the wear pattern shows it's been there a while, so having to exist on beans & toast for a month or two, possibly will solve a long standing problem. Wish I'd spotted it before wasting time and a 2mm boron drill bit extracting the bush . Pssttt goes the 3rd coors ! Roy.
That crack is relatively common. I replace them when I see it, but the kickstart has always been working when I found it, so I don't think that's the problem. The bushing being bad could cause it so in either case, a new kickstart shaft may fix it.
Yes, checked that before I found the crack. Shiny contact area on (now useless) shaft. No wonder I drink !!
I suspect that when the kick-start misses and then catches halfway down that the force would be strong enough to cause a fracture. In a foot or leg also !!!
