It's odd that on the unit singles it's a hardened and ground steel spacer/bush. It you use a tab washer it will collapse, and the nut loosens.
Gluing the nut is the only viable solution. This is for extreme racing though. Holding the kickstart down whilst riding will cause it to weld to the pinion gear and mainshaft. Race over!
This was another of my worries that the side loading whilst kickstarting could deform the bush if it was made from sintered bronze.
I'm feeling that's it's service life would be better using PB1.
Also, it's worth remembering that bad gear changes can subject it to extra forces. Any free play when fitting it would be a mistake, along with crushing it.
If the standard bronze bush really deforms under hard and long kickstart pressure it could also make the pinion to tilt a bit under pressure and might be one of the reasons for the often skew/oblique/slanting?? wear of the pinion teeth and kickstartquadrant.
With a steel bush you can also safely clamp the whole mainshaft assembly with all its bushes and shims firmly around the small bearing without worrying to deform it. BR Michiel
I'm not overwhelmed with the tooth profile on the kickstart gears and that may not help with the loading Michiel.
Before I made any steel bushes to retail for the pinion, I would test them extensively myself. But it does make more sense to have a steel bush that you can tighten against without fear. Sorry for my Blasphemy.
The kickstart gears will have to be sent away for the profiles to be analyzed. The result I expect will be that the gears I produce will not be compatible with the Indian ones in use now. One good thing will be that my kickstart quadrants will be supported by the layshaft bush.
