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bent footrest

im sure im not the first to ask but i cant find any posts related to bent footrests/footpegs
both of my crosshatched ones on my 44 M20 are bent downward is there a safe way to straighten them without breaking them
thanks again

Kevin

email (option): taybrig@shaw.ca

Re: bent footrest

I'd say heat!

Put it in a vice and heat it with an acetylene torch, preferably with a shower fitted.

Best way I find is to have the "mounting" part of the foot rest in the vice and then a steel pipe for leverage over the "sticking out" part. Pull on the pipe as you heat the place where the bend is. When the metal reaches adequate temperature you will feel the by now soft metal easily bending to where you want it. This way you reduce the risk of over heating (you don't want to melt them down! :grinning: ) as you will feel exactly when the temperature is just high enough.

You will of course have to give them a new paint job when the straightening is done.

Good luck!

/Simon

Re: bent footrest

thanks, thats what i was thinking but not knowing what the were made of made me check on here first, i know some will break while trying to straighten

email (option): taybrig@shaw.ca

Re: bent footrest

They are malleable iron castings...They will bend cold but it's far better to heat them as Simon describes...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: bent footrest

Cheers, im on it thanks

email (option): taybrig@shaw.ca

Re: bent footrest

If they are both bent down I would suggest that they were in fact bent up and have been swapped left right .
I always do foot pegs on the bike.
Same way oxy torch and a 4' long shifter so I get them square to the frame
In a vice very easy to go too far.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: bent footrest

Bent down is kind of unusual. I had one bent back and up as a result of a fall over sometime in its past. Cold bending is almost impossible. I tried. I used an acetylene torch. No oxy-acetylene. No need for all that heat. Heat the area to bend to dull red and bend accordingly.

email (option): cbhaws@verizon.net

Re: bent footrest

left on the right makes sense but still bent, ill do them on the bike with heat, thanks so much for all the replies
Kevin

email (option): taybrig@shaw.ca

Re: bent footrest

"If they are both bent down I would suggest that they were in fact bent up and have been swapped left right"

I am not quite sure what you are thinking would cause this Trevor?

But as for my bike that spent the first half of its life in Sri Lanka until it was imported to Sweden in 1989; I am thinking whenever coming to a bump in the road (never been to Sri Lanka but I imagine they have/used to have a few?) the rider would stand up slightly on the foot rests and "bam!" the unsuspended rear end slams the whole wight of the rider on to the rests. Repeat daily for 40 years and you may end up with both foot rests slight bent downwards.

But I am just guessing here really, letting my imagination run wild. If that wasn't obvious. :)

As for bending them when fitted to the bike I wouldn't risk ending up bending the material they are fitted to. If your bike i straight and your vice i straight everything will end up straight. Test fit them and bend some more if not good.

Best regards,

Simon

Re: bent footrest

15 years training in metallurgy
50 years riding BSA's
No way the weight of a human could bend a malleable iron foot peg down
Onl way to bend it down wouls be to have a slide with the bike hitting the ground very hard and sliding side on
However this never happens because if it were sliding like that either the bike would flip or spin,
The bottom bit is a lot heavier than the top bit so the bottom bit always leads.

A sudden application of force can cause a metallic part that would not normally bend to bend.
It is called "high energy rate" deformation .
We are all familiar with it when a cast zinc brake/clutch lever will be bent into a curl after a fall.
No matter what yiu do to it, it will break when you try to straiten it
But if you don't , it will be just a strong as it was before it was bent, just an uncomfortable angle.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: bent footrest

A bit of a late reply here,

Hm... I think maybe we are talking about two different things here Trevor? I am talking about foot rests being bent to where they are pointing downwards at like 5-10 degrees (and that's also how I understood the original question in the thread). And you Trevor are talking about a foot rest being slam-bent completely out of whack to where it is pointing straight up. Quite the different thing. And I totally agree with you; that could never be caused by a human body.

Now I find this discussion is getting out of hand and I have no need to question your many years of knowledge, nor to continue debating. I just wanted to clarify that I think we miss understood each other a bit.

Best regards,

Simon

Re: bent footrest

Just to add a new dimension to this thread can we discuss offside footpegs bent rearwards as a result of hitting a low garden wall coming back from the pub in the dark. I haven't got oxy-acetylene nor reverse gear so I'm having to live with it.

Re: bent footrest

Reverse the pegs and hit the same wall going to the pub. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Re: bent footrest

Simon of Sweden
A bit of a late reply here,

Hm... I think maybe we are talking about two different things here Trevor? I am talking about foot rests being bent to where they are pointing downwards at like 5-10 degrees (and that's also how I understood the original question in the thread). And you Trevor are talking about a foot rest being slam-bent completely out of whack to where it is pointing straight up. Quite the different thing. And I totally agree with you; that could never be caused by a human body.

Now I find this discussion is getting out of hand and I have no need to question your many years of knowledge, nor to continue debating. I just wanted to clarify that I think we miss understood each other a bit.

Best regards,

Simon
Simon,
I understood what you were saying but there is no way repeated bouncing up & down on a malleable iron casting can ever cause it to bend, even if you did it for one thousand years .
You might get a little flex but more like the through bolt bending than the foot peg bending and even the steel engine mounting plates bending bit the foot peg woun't.
You can lift the entire bike by the foot peg and it still does not bend .

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: bent footrest

Both my foot rests were bent up and back. I turned an arbor to fit the mounting holes, clamped the arbor in the vise, heated the mounts with an oxy/ acetylene torch and using a couple of adjustable wrenches, bent them back to their approximate original positions. The edges were also ground from the previous owners falling off, I built those up and ground them back down to about what they would have originally been.

email (option): metalfab54@yahoo.com

Re: bent footrest

Well in keeping with the previous post regarding the outcome of the issues being solved i can say that after studying the angles i took the footrests to the shop next door to me where they have a large vice and oxy acetylene and proceeded to bend them to where i thought they should be only to find out that after installing them they are still not at the right angle so..... when im ready i will take the bike there and do them on the bike...... honestly they looked correct in the vice ha ha

email (option): taybrig@shaw.ca

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