Snippets

[Steve9]

Good job...

[sportsterpaul]

Originally Posted by Crusty

Hello Ma; Hello Pa…


…It was a tough fight; but I finally won.

It started the other day. I decided that I’d put the crash bar on the Roadster. I knew it would fit; it was barely hitting the fork legs of the Express, so I was pretty positive that it would fit. I figured the job would take about half an hour. It took four days and it exhausted all my patience. I am nothing if not persistent, however (like the Pacleds on Star Trek) and I found a way to get the job done.

It started when I stripped out a T45 button head Torx bolt (3/8-16 x 1 1/2 “ long). I couldn’t get a good angle on it, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to break loose. I stripped out the inside on the head and also chewed up the bit in my socket. I couldn’t get a good purchase with my vise grips and there wasn’t room to get my drill in there to drill out the head. I don’t have a Dremel tool at present (but I bought one from Amazon; it’s supposed to be delivered this coming Friday). What I finally resorted to was sitting there with a file that I could move about an inch at a time and just patiently filed flats on the side of the button head. Once I got it filed down to where I could fit a 13mm open end wrench on it, I was able to finally get the bolt to move a little.

I probably could have finished the job on the second day, but instead of fighting the bolt, I took advantage of the 63º F weather and went for an afternoon long ride. I just happend to ride up to Powder Keg H-D where they had the bolts in stock. With tax, they came to a princely $1.82. I spent more on gas to get them. I took the next couple of days off, intentionally, but today, I decided I’d try once again after I ordered the Dremel.

Anywho; I got the chewed up bolt out, put the crash bar on and got everything tightened. I put the front wheel and fender back on the bike (I had to remove them because I needed the space) and I even did a bit of cleaning on things while they were apart.

I’m feeling a good bit of satisfaction. I got the sonovabitch and I didn’t have to wait for the Dremel.

I took a couple of photos as a test of my new (used) camera.

You know John you just might want to grind a couple flats on the heads of the new ones, just saying. Meantime I’ve tackled some issues on my Black Beauty to be ready for the next C.O.B.B. run, soon. On that subject while addressing the front brakes I needed to slip the pads out for some attention. The stumbling block for me became the damn black plastic plugs, slotted head, covering the allenhead pad retaining bolts. Left side finally succumbed but the right side gave me fits, had to resort to the handheld impact driver. Anybody else have this problem, could be just me as I seem to be special that way. Why would a plastic threaded cover want to bind so tight into the caliper casting?