I was hopeful that the refusal of the Harley to go from neutral to first gear might be down to a clutch adjustment issue. Nope. I reset it several times but when I started it up it still wouldn’t do it. I’ve been working in fits and starts as I’ve been pretty consistently wasted with plague weakness. It’s not fun and it makes doing *anything* a Herculean task. I forced myself to do an hour, which turned into a few hours, on the bike. If it’s not clutch adjustment, maybe the clutch retaining ring wasn’t seated right, (the posts into which it fits got a bit bashed when I stripped it the first time). I had that spare complete clutch basket, and I know what I’m doing this time, so I thought I’d just whip my clutch off, move the clutch plates and such to the new clutch, then refit it. That all went quite smoothly. I rebuilt the new clutch, put it in the chain with the other piece that you fit as a unit.
It wouldn’t go on. I spent a fair while wondering what the hell I’d done wrong this time that I didn’t previously. I managed to wedge it back on in the end but the connecting chain was straining taut. It’s supposed to have an inch of play that you take out with an adjuster. I’m guessing the clutch is from a later model and is slightly bigger. Too big. Then I had the problem of getting the two pieces and the taut chain off as a unit. The stator is behind the front cover, so the magnets make it tough to get off normally. Like that is seemed almost impossible. I tried several levers to prize it off, but I was scared of damaging the mating surface for the gasket. In the end I squeezed a claw hammer in to give me leverage. I got the clutch off but in doing so snapped a little lever I hadn’t realised I was pressing against. A small part of the gear selection mechanism called a detent arm.
And then the fun really starts. It’s a small, cast, arm. So, difficult to weld. Harley don’t make the part any more. I found one place in Japan that would make the part to order. One. On the whole of the internet. They charged me £36, which was fair. Then emailed me back two days later saying the part was no longer in production and refunded me. I scoured the internet, not one single source for a new part anywhere. I found other posts asking different forums where they could source it, without any good reply. I tried Harley breakers. Nothing. The single solitary source for it was a rip-off American breaker on eBay. I can either wait for someone to kill their bike and strip it down to sell for bits, or buy off the rip-off. £173! Gutted. On principle. And it’s my own stupid fault in the first place. Doubly aggrieving.
I forgot to say, when I stripped the old/ current clutch, the retaining ring was seated perfectly, so it wasn’t that. The only reason I went ahead and swapped them was because I had a new one, so why not? I did have one thought though. The new clutch kit came with an upgraded clutch spring plate. What if that’s why the clutch is grinding instead of disengaging? I still had the old spring plate, so I’ve swapped it back. Worth a shot. The replacement detent arm should be here for next weekend so I can rebuild it then and find out.
This weekend, tomorrow, I have to work on my VFR. It has been making whirring sounds before the starter motor engaged for a week or two. It’s not been a problem so I ignored it. Then it refused to engage altogether. Problem. After a few tries it did get going that day, and has been starting on the button for a few days. Then as I was trying to leave work tonight it went again. It took me a good 15 minutes, trying to rock it, start it on the button, bump start it, start on the button, etc before it finally, grudgingly, started. That’s too much. Tomorrow I fit the new starter motor. Obviously just unscrewing the current one and taking it off would be too easy. I have to strip the fairings, drop the oil, remove the oil filter, and loosen the oil pipes to get access to the bloody thing. A pox on the house of Honda!
I was feeling OK when I started this, that’s why I started it, but now I’m feeling weak and tired and my brain is fogging again. This really sucks. I was hoping it was just a long recovery but I’m tending more towards long covid again. Wendy is worse. She’s still not been back to work. Or been to church. Or got her hair cut! On the bright side, it seems the low white blood cells was nothing serious. They just put her on vitamins. Well, she had already started self medicating (thank you Doctor Google) but they’d added weapon’s grade vitamin D to the mix.
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