Riding, and fixing, my Ultra Classic
Time for me to beg - I need a hand to make a primary locking tool, to lock the primary drive so I can undo the compensator sprocket and clutch basket. There's an official HD tool for doing this, and it's relatively cheap ($50ish), but there's a 5 week wait for delivery. Fortunately, as well as the official HD service manual, I've been using this step-by-step guide at harleyhog.co.uk and he's got a design for a simple metal bracket that will achieve the same purpose. So I need ...
I had grand plans to get lots done on the bike over the weekend, despite still waiting for the belt. And then work intervened. Managed to fit in a small twiddle tonight, which makes me feel vaguely accomplished. Had a go at fitting the new Jiffy Stand spring, but the new spring doesn't have much stretch, and it was starting to look actually tricky. I've got to take the left side floorboard off anyway when I pull the primary apart, so I'll leave it to then as at that point I should ...
Just back from ANZA, sorting out the status of the belt order (next week....) and sorting out the other parts I'm going to need for the replacement. The good news is most of it is stuff they keep in stock. The bad news is that there are 2 special HD "tools" I need, and it turns out they come from a place in Australia who are a bit slow in turnaround. Hopefully this won't prove to be a major holdup.
Still waiting on parts, but I popped out to my mate's place this evening and had a bit of a tinker with the bike. I wanted to get familiar with the lift and putting the bike up and down, and see if I could re-attach the spring for the jiffy stand (that's the official HD nomenclature for what yer average motorcycle enthusiast would call a "side stand"). The lift is working nicely, once you get it positioned correctly under the bike, and it's fairly easy to move the bike around while ...
As detailed here, my bike suffered a broken drive belt on the Chateau to Plateau ride - its second broken belt in 3 months. It wasn't my happiest day. My original thoughts were to just park it in the garage for about 6 weeks and ignore it. The full belt replacement (which I'm familiar with from the first one in October) is about a $1000 repair, and I don't really have that much spare cash at the moment, especially after paying for a service and new rear tyre in January ($600 and change ...
Been a while since I've used this, but the forum updates seem to have improved things, and now I've got a new bike I think I'll keep it up to date - particularly with the upcoming attempt at fixing the drive belt myself. More to come...