Model A - Kickstart spring cover 2

 After lots of input from the Ariel community, I now understand how the kickstart spring cover is supposed to work. 

There are four parts in play, illustrated by this page from the parts book:

• LS254, the kickstart lever. I think I have the right one
• LS262, the kickstart bush. This comes all the way out of the end cover up to the end of the shaft, LS253. The bush is 1 3/8" OD
• LS263, the distance piece. Andrew H of the AOMCC tells me that this is 1 1/2" OD, so the wall thickness must be something like 1/16".
• LS264, the spring cover

The big reveal is that it is the distance sleeve that keeps the spring cover in place, and that it is itself kept in place by the kickstart lever. This means the spring cover, LS264, must fit tightly enough around the bush LS262 to be retained by the 1/16" thickness of the distance piece LS263. 

The other thing I've seen is that the top of the spring cover is not flat, but follows a nice radius. The former has been back to the lathe for reshaping:

I've prepared another bit of sheet, by cutting it to size, squaring the ends and removing the paint:

Before we start on that, I found a piece of exhaust pipe the perfect size for the distance piece. I made a wooden former so I could cut it to length in the lathe and form a short radius on the end.

The radius prevents it sliding towards the gearbox quite successfully and it fits rather well behind the kickstart lever.

I formed the spring cover in the same way that I did last time but there was no way it would shrink far enough to get to the required inside diameter for the kickstart bush, so I ended up cutting darts in it and welding them up

There is a bit more work to do, but all the bits fit together. I think the spring cover is too long but I always knew I would have to trim it and I need to finish the welding. Lastly there will be a hole for the spring to pass through.

Before we get into that though - this is my latest invention for welding - an arm rest! Makes controlling the torch so much easier:

The arm rest made finishing those tiny welds much less stressful. The welds were backed with a curved copper strip which as I have shown before minimises the dressing required on the back side and gives you much more control when welding this thin material. It's been welded, ground out inside, straightened, ground outside and so on...

Next job is to drill a 1/4" hole near the edge, and file it oval:

Then I've used a drill to form the material such that the spring can pass through:

The spring is wound in from above:

In the video, the spring cover has been trimmed to length and fitted:

It's not perfect but it's nearly there. I shall raise the edge of the cover a little more since the whole assembly has to account for end float in the kickstart shaft, and there is a bit more clearance than I would like.