THE GOOD BUCK

After saying last time out that I only got one shift in a week, and that I definitely needed a new job, I’ve got 3 out of the 4 I put myself as available, this week. The thing is, I don’t want to put myself as available for any more shifts in case I get them all. They are generally 11 to 12.5 hour shifts, and the driving is incredibly stressful. I want 3 days off. 3 shifts of work is well enough to pay the bills, so I’ll wait another week before I have to make any decisions. My opinion of the Harley has been swinging back and forth. I’ve fitted the wider bars, with bar end mirrors, and it’s much more useable now, unfortunately the angle of the bars means I’m now straining my wrist to pull the levers. I’ve not got around to taking the forks out to fit the new oil seals and covers yet. I definitely need to make it comfortable to ride. Some guy online has whipped off the tank, mudguard and seat then fitted Japanese motorbike components. It’s made it look loads more useable. It’s a thought. As is a Japanese front end. Just unbolt the headstock and fit a decent front end and bars. If I knew of one that was a straight swap I’d have it on my ebay watchlist. Because we live in an arbitrary yet vindictive universe, I’m also having issues with the Bonnie. After the oil and filter change I put in the workshop manual specified 3.3 litres of oil. Which was too much. I noticed a small drip of oil and realised I’d blown a seal. Idiot. I drained some off, but riding into work I noticed it had sprayed oil on my boot and there was oil dripping on to my pipes. Very not good. I ordered a new gasket and fitted it today. It turns out it wasn’t the excess oil (well, that won’t have helped) but a broken bit of the engine casing. Where one of the alternator cover bolts screws into the engine casing, the two sides of the thread are bust apart. I’ll post a picture tomorrow, but instead of it being a circle of metal with a thread in the middle, it’s two half circles, split open. There is no thread for the bolt to gain purchase and it doesn’t form a smooth seal against the gasket. That is so not good. Especially as it’s cast alloy, so it’s brittle, I’m worried when I try to bend it shut it will snap. I’ve ordered some high heat epoxy resin (and another gasket) that says it’s good for engine blocks. On Monday I’ll whip the cover off again, clean and dry the surfaces, squeeze some resin into the split metal and clamp it shut with mole grips. If it snaps, it snaps. As long as the epoxy does its job and fixes the two halves back together smoothly, I can work from […]

The nights lark just did not work for me, as I said last time out, so I’ve switched to days. Yay! I’ve done a full week of days, including the busy weekend period, and got one shift. To be fair, when I applied to the agency I asked about days and the guy said “We have a lot of drivers who want days and not many shifts.” I don’t know, after getting six shifts in a week on nights I was hoping there would be enough to keep me going on days. Nope. Back to the job hunt. Nights fail, days fail. At least there is symmetry. There are plenty of jobs out there, but none are great. Nights or stupid o’clock start times, adding a lot to my day in commute time, or poor pay. For instance, I was thinking of doing Iceland. It’s a tough job, with tough driving and long hours, but it’s local and it’s full time. But it’s 04.00 – 06.00 starts now. That’s less than ideal. For 43K. Which sound good, but for, say, an average of an 11 hour day, that’s about £15.50 per hour, and it’s a weekly take home of £633. OK, it was a 69 hour, 6 shift, week of nights last week, but I took home £1,326. So £633, for grafting my arse off, does not sound appealing. The winner at the moment seems to be Poundland. Near Haydock, so about the same commute, £17.73 starting pay, with paid break, overtime rate, 1 to 2 drops a day, 09.00 – 12.00 starts. That all sounds reasonable. Not fantastic, but reasonable. I’ll apply tomorrow. Ironically the Royal Mail emailed me to say I’d been successful with my application so I was to forward my driving licence check details. I did, but sent the recruiter an email to say RM had got rid of me off the agency. She cancelled my application. sigh. I’ve had a to-do with the Harley as well. They stung me with the insurance. I upped the miles on the Bonnie to account for my longer commute when I renewed, but being multi-bike insurance I couldn’t do an online comparison. Anyway, with the extra miles, it was £597 for the year. When I did an online check, just for the Bonnie, with the same miles, it was £233. That miffed me. Then, on my one day shift this week I rode it into work. And I hated it. It was slow, uncomfortable, and just stupid. I was all set for selling it. Then I rode home. One of the indicators fell off, and another was acting dodgy, and I’ve noticed the brand new fork seals are leaking, but it felt better. I’ve ordered a fork seal set. Today I fitted the new bars from the Harley specialist shop. They are a bit wider, so the handgrips fit properly now. And I was able to fit some bar end mirrors. I took it out for a test ride. […]

I tried. I did two weeks of nights. It was stupid start times, but that is the shift they recruit for, so I was trying to show willing, and see if I could do it. I couldn’t. 23.30 start, 01.00, 00.01, then one day 21.30. That was the final straw. I’d only got to bed at 13.00. I was either working (11 to 12.5 hour shifts) or trying to sleep. It was miserable. Then they did that 21.30 thing and I’d had enough. I asked if I could move to day shift. They said I could, which was a relief because I was going to quit if they’d said no. Then the next shift the sleeping tablets (antihistamines) gave me a massive tachycardia attack. It was awful. It lasted about 40 minutes and I couldn’t stop it. That was when I was absolutely sure I’d made the right decision. If I couldn’t take sleeping pills I would have been on about 2 to 4 hours sleep a day. That is a recipe for falling asleep at the wheel and dying. I finished my last two shifts on nights, I’m supposed to be on days after my days off. Another good thing about it is Wendy has gone loony again, so she was suffering really badly with me leaving her alone all night. She seems to be a lot better while I’m here, so it’s worth it for that. The job itself is a mixed bag. It’s physically extremely easy. And seems to be very laid back. But the driving to get to the stores, and to deliver to them, is next level tough. I’m not looking forward to seeing what the deliveries are like when the stores are busy. Yesterday, for instance, I had to deliver to a local (small shop) in Salford. The route plan said you had to reverse (a rigid truck) the whole length of a residential street, with cars parked on either side, around a corner, between cars, bins and concrete posts, to get to the drop. That was focusing. And that was at 05.00 on Sunday. I can’t even imagine what that would be like at a busy time. I had a moment of stress this morning. I looked at the agency app to try to work out roughly what I’d be getting paid. I worked out my hours for the week and it came to 69 hours. That’s well over the 60 I’m allowed by the Working Time Directive. 60 in a week, 90 in any consecutive fortnight. So I was screwed for next week as well. I was mentally taking off breaks and Periods Of Availability (as they don’t count to WTD) but I was still over. Luckily I keep paper records for myself. I had a look, and one of the shifts was technically in the previous week for WTD purposes. That was a huge relief. I don’t need a bunch of infringements on my first weeks. Henceforth I’ll batter POA. It’s […]

The Bonnie is done! I fitted the fender extender yesterday and that’s it. Job’s a good ‘un. It should just be putting petrol in it for the next twelve months. I took the Harley for another spin after my last post and it was running weird again. The speedo still wasn’t working and there was a weird spluttery spot in the rev range and backfires on deceleration. That sounds like a fuelling issue. The carb intake didn’t have a filter (it’s got a big arse metal cover, I thought that would be enough to stop it sucking in crap) and because I panicked last time I fuelled up I just put standard 10% ethanol petrol in, so that wouldn’t have helped. The replacement speedo cable has already frayed so I bought another new one. Today I took the clock off to have a look. The original speedo cable had snapped inside the clock, so it was preventing the new cable from seating. I cleared it, fitted the new cable and it works now. The air filter arrived today as well so I took the opportunity to take the carb off and clean the jets, then fitted the new air filter and took it for a test ride. It was running fine. Which is a relief. Up until now I’ve been doing quite small runs to see how far I can go without blowing up. The last time out I did 12 miles, which is significant because it’s the distance to work. So I now have a spare bike, in case of emergency, to get to work. It would have to be a pretty dire emergency. If I fired that up at midnight or so the neighbours would not be happy bunnies. It’s still got the fully baffled stock pipes, but bloody hell it’s loud. Anyway, today I wanted to use up the crap petrol so I took it for a spin. 32 miles, with 10 or so of them at (Harley) white-knuckle speeds of 60 and 70 mph down the motorway! It was fine. I fuelled up with 5% ethanol petrol and I’m hoping that’s it for the Harley. It’s no longer a project, it’s now a ride-able motorbike. There are two things that need sorting, the riding position (I’m hoping the new bars will do that) and I need mirrors. Thinking about it, I’ll look and see what the new bars I’ve ordered are like. If they have open ends I’ll order some bar end mirrors like I’ve got on the Bonnie. Live action blogging here. I looked, the bars are indeed open, but virtually all the bar end mirrors are for 7/8th inch bars. The Sporty is 1″. I finally stumbled across a pair, specifically advertised for Harleys, and they come with the grips. The grips on the standard bars are closed at the ends, so to fit the mirrors I thought I was going to have to chop the ends off, now I don’t have to bodge […]

I had a series of problems with the Bonnie. My new chain and sprocket set arrived, then the new back tyre, so I whipped the wheels off and fitted it all at the same time. The front sprocket! It was like it was welded on. It was a big nut so I wasn’t too scared of applying force, but I had the breaker bar with an extension, about 5′ long in all, and it looked like my bar was bending and the nut was stubbornly intransient. I applied coats of penetrating oil and smacked it with an impact driver. Still nothing. I was at a bit of a loss. Then I remembered I bought a high torque electric impact impact wrench. It’s not that it applies so much more torque, it’s the fact that it applies it so many times per second. The nut came off. Yay! Once I’d been reminded of what a great tool it was I went back to my rear brake caliper. The workshop manual says to loosen two allen bolts before you remove the caliper. I’d been applying as much force as I dared but I was scared of snapping the bolt. With the impact wrench I span them out in seconds. Truly great tool. Then I cleaned my brake pistons, then fully compressed them with a C clamp. I think they are properly fixed again now. The mudguard was a bust. After waiting ages for it, it was the same length as the one on it, but had stupid long fitting arms. The mudguard would have been about 4 or 5 inches off the tyre. I’m trying for a refund. I’ve bought a stick-on fender extender. I’ll add that to the standard mudguard. Still not as long as I’d like but it seems to be as good as I’m getting. I fitted the M bars. They are the business. I’m very happy with them. Before and after. I did an oil and filter change, and spent two days stressing over the engine remapping. I finally got it to install today. That’s it. The bike is done. Stick on the fender extender then it’s just putting petrol in it for the next year. Happy days! Other winning is, after stressing, thinking the Harley was a piece of crap that wouldn’t run, I took it out for another ride and it was fine. Odd. I don’t know if it really was running rough as rats the last time, or if I was just expecting it to feel like the Triumph, but it was fine. I’m having minor issues with the speedo cable, but I took it for a 12 mile ride, including a blip on the motorway, and the engine was fine. Now I’m thinking my priority for that bike is to change the handlebars. The riding position is so cramped with the bars pushing you back and the seat feeling really far forward. I’ve tried my position if I had lower, flatter, bars and that […]