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Showing posts from January, 2022

Spider In The Speedo

  $500 Spider The spider, it appears that he's building a web around my speedometer needle. Think of the possibilities:  "I didn't know I was speeding officer…oh, look, there's a spider web in my speedometer." Or this:  "…one hundred miles per hour…No Way. My speedometer only said fifty-five." Well, there's a little hole in the back, and I hooked a tiny hose onto a can of Raid, and gave him a little shot. There's really no way to get the little fucker out of there; I don't think the speedo comes apart. So for now, I'll just wait and see if the Raid will take its toll. And think of more excuses… So…the spider was living in the speedometer, and I figured, “…live and let live,” that is, until she started building a web to the needle.  So a little Raid applied around the holes  in the bottom, where the wires go in, and a dose of heat from the heat gun, to spread the fumes, and the spider lay down at a spot between 90 and 95 MPH, on the glass....

Loose Mainshaft Nut

 Riding backroads, the last mile before home, I make the right at the stop sign, let out the clutch and, zip, nothing. Engine’s running, no power to the wheel. Another gear, same thing, no power to the wheel. I’m at the bottom of the hill, and she ain’t moving.  Neighbor comes by in his truck, and we fasten a strap around the top of my fork, attached to his bumper, and he tows me to the bottom of my driveway, where, with much effort, we push the dead 650 lb. machine up the hill to the garage. What could cause such a vulnerability? I’d had the tranny rebuilt only 23,000 miles ago. So I drained the tranny. There were no metal chips on the drain plug magnet: a good sign. So I dug into the primary, and the clutch, considering the high mileage of 148,000, looked good. When I took off the inner primary, the problem was readily apparent: a loose mainshaft sprocket nut. Aluminum shavings littered the recess of the sprocket from where the spinning nut gouged the area around the mainsha...