How To

Trail Tip: Bending Shift Levers

May 2, 2013

Rocks are everywhere, usually right where you least expect them and they are always out to do some kind of damage. Our CRF450X recently went a round with a large boulder and the shift lever came out of the fight a little farther away from the cases. We didn’t have a replacement and wanted to keep riding so we grabbed what we had, a couple of adjustable wrenches, and went to work. We didn’t get it exactly back to the stock position but we didn’t break the shifter and were able to ride the rest of the day.

If you have two adjustable wrenches, great! We used this technique along multiple points of the shift lever, tweaking it back as close to the cases as possible. This puts a little pressure on the shift shaft and there is always the chance of breaking the shift lever so we stopped before it broke. It was a better plan than snapping off the shifter completely.

If you only have one adjustable wrench (this can be done with an open end wrench that fits over the shifter head) this is another option. We used the handle of an Allen wrench behind the shifter as a holder and a bend zone. This technique puts a lot of pressure on the shifter head and it loosened up the rivets that hold the shifter head to the shift arm, creating a bit of a wobbly shifter head. Once again, it wasn’t perfect but it was better than the shift lever sitting only a couple inches from the foot peg.