Alternative starter gear spring fix.

There are a few posts around on different forums dealing with starter gear spring fixes. They are all basically the same, place the hairpin bend of the spring in the vice and crush it using the vice. This may work, but gives very little increase in the tension placed on the gear. On my spare spring, it simply wasn't enough, so I devised another fix.

Springs are bent to shape during manufacture, then hardened. Hardened spring steel is not meant to be bent, certainly not in as tight a bend as this repair dictates. Bending spring steel at such an acute angle will result in some fracturing of the metal on the apex of the bend. And of course, should this spring come apart, you risk causing some damage to the internals of the engine.

With this in mind, I placed the hairpin bend in the vice, then stuck a 3mm piece of steel between the bend and tightened the vice, thus preventing the hairpin bend from being crushed and thus weakened by fracturing. Then just using light finger pressure I bent each of the large arcs inward. Using this method the steel is not being bent so acutely. Whilst there will still be some fracturing of the metal around the bend, it is no where near as much placed on the hairpin bend when you crush it.

Thanks to my friend Pablo for the sketch, as you can see it is of a very high quality and very artistic

Obviously his pre-cubism era.