No, really. It's ok. I swear.
'cept it's not quite.
Well, actually, it could be worse. It could be much worse. So I tore apart the Cannonball bike today.
The rear wheel was wiggly and that put me on edge. Realistically though, it wasn't just the movement but the fact that the hub could have been wearing away at the spline shaft which freaked me out, so I tore into it with Aaron. That was an interesting experiment if only because neither of us had done that on the bike before, so there was a bit of a figuring-out-as-you-go deal.
So after we got the exhaust off, then the backing plate off, then the backing plate / swing arm, what we noticed immediately was that the nut that keeps tension on the hub and keeps it in place was... uh... let's just say it came off with just a little wiggle with two fingers. It had basically broken free and left the cotter pin safety to keep the frickin' wheel in place. Scary as hell. I don't know how long it had been that way but it certainly explained why I had problems braking, too.
So we looked at the splines on the shaft and everything looked "right", and not particularly worn. Hub seemed fine too. We replaced the rear wheel with a 130/ 70x12" Heidenau H61, and buttoned it up.
For the proverbial "shits and giggles", we took apart the transmission to check out the variator and clutch splines. Those were potentially the most worrisome, as damage to those splines could mean a whole new engine. The spline shaft coming into the variator is basically the crank shaft, so... damage = broken. Done.
After ripping it apart, though, it seems the splines were in pretty decent condition. The spline grooves on the variator, on the other hand - and I mean both halves - were toast. Utterly done. Chewed up, ground down, and useless. It was actually a bit of a pain to get the back half of the variator off.
When it came down to it, though, the ramp on the variator was also pretty bad. Even though it was a new one I had put on just at the start of Cannonball, it was definitely worn worse than a variator that I had put some 11,500 miles on previously. Think about that for a minute.
So I put the old variator with perfectly good spline grooves back on, put a fresh set of rollers on, replaced the Cannonball belt with a reasonably decent-but-used belt, and then put the bike back together (after forgetting a washer once) and fired it up. Seemed to be good.
It runs pretty decently. Has run better but has also run worse.
I still worry about the plug. I think what's going to need to happen is that I'm going to buy a head, then convince someone who knows how to not screw these things up help me un-do the plug that's in there. If the threads are stripped on the head, we'll put the new one in and put in the new plug there.
That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
Well, actually, it could be worse. It could be much worse. So I tore apart the Cannonball bike today.
The rear wheel was wiggly and that put me on edge. Realistically though, it wasn't just the movement but the fact that the hub could have been wearing away at the spline shaft which freaked me out, so I tore into it with Aaron. That was an interesting experiment if only because neither of us had done that on the bike before, so there was a bit of a figuring-out-as-you-go deal.
So after we got the exhaust off, then the backing plate off, then the backing plate / swing arm, what we noticed immediately was that the nut that keeps tension on the hub and keeps it in place was... uh... let's just say it came off with just a little wiggle with two fingers. It had basically broken free and left the cotter pin safety to keep the frickin' wheel in place. Scary as hell. I don't know how long it had been that way but it certainly explained why I had problems braking, too.
So we looked at the splines on the shaft and everything looked "right", and not particularly worn. Hub seemed fine too. We replaced the rear wheel with a 130/ 70x12" Heidenau H61, and buttoned it up.
For the proverbial "shits and giggles", we took apart the transmission to check out the variator and clutch splines. Those were potentially the most worrisome, as damage to those splines could mean a whole new engine. The spline shaft coming into the variator is basically the crank shaft, so... damage = broken. Done.
After ripping it apart, though, it seems the splines were in pretty decent condition. The spline grooves on the variator, on the other hand - and I mean both halves - were toast. Utterly done. Chewed up, ground down, and useless. It was actually a bit of a pain to get the back half of the variator off.
When it came down to it, though, the ramp on the variator was also pretty bad. Even though it was a new one I had put on just at the start of Cannonball, it was definitely worn worse than a variator that I had put some 11,500 miles on previously. Think about that for a minute.
So I put the old variator with perfectly good spline grooves back on, put a fresh set of rollers on, replaced the Cannonball belt with a reasonably decent-but-used belt, and then put the bike back together (after forgetting a washer once) and fired it up. Seemed to be good.
It runs pretty decently. Has run better but has also run worse.
I still worry about the plug. I think what's going to need to happen is that I'm going to buy a head, then convince someone who knows how to not screw these things up help me un-do the plug that's in there. If the threads are stripped on the head, we'll put the new one in and put in the new plug there.
That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.