YZ250F Kickstarter stop broke

[Motomom]

Bought a 2003 YZ250F in May, son rode it in the summer. About mid Oct the kickstarter stop inside the clutch case broke and rattled around inside the engine finally ended up cracking the case. Anyone know if this is a known defect?

[Macho393]

I have a 02model this is the first I've heard of it. You also might want to try thumpertalk.com go to the yamamha 250 forum. Let us know. Sounds to me like something else broke

[Motomom]

That's the only thing we could find in the engine that was loose. Everything else was intact. We found out that this had happened on several 2002 models. Looking at the kickstarter stop, the inside appears to have air bubbles. It looks like a cast piece, not solid metal. I guess they were trying to save weight? I took lots of pictures.

[Deadeye]

I have an 02 also and haven't had that problem. How bad is the case cracked? If you haven't done anything with it yet I was going to suggest using JB Weld to repair it. The hills around here are very rocky so many people use it to repair cracks and hole. Works great.

[MXRider#12]

That sucks dude. I had the same problem when i got my new 03 Yamaha YZ450F in March and 3 to 4 months after, my stopper plate broke too and it took Yamaha 2 to 3 weeks to send me a new one because they didnt have any in stock, well its not really a defect its just because Yamaha didnt install them right because when u have something like that, thats really important u should have some kind of lock-tight on the threads, so now that Yamaha didnt do that they are just probably gonna vibrate come loose and snap off when that kick starter hits it and it costed me just for that little tiny part was about 70- 75 bucks.

[Motomom]

Yamaha finally came through, half way. They will replace the case and do the labor. We pay for the "incidentals". Hopefully this will also help other people. Don't give up and do your research. Thanks for the info with the lock-tight, used in on more than a few bolts already.