THE GOOD BUCK

My last post, 2 days ago was a tale of woe. I’d been wasted all week with the plague weakness and I was resigned to another 18 month bout of long covid, like last time. That was Saturday. As I was blogging I got wiped out again. I was dreading stripping the VFR in the morning, but I had to replace the starter motor before it failed again and I got stranded at work. I woke up suspiciously OK, and got to work. I needed an oil filter and oil to do to the job. Halfords said they no longer stock bike oil filters but I found a motorbike shop in Warrington that said online they had some. They lied. I had to get oil anyway so I went to Halfords on the way back, they had a handful of old stock oil filters they hadn’t yet got rid of, I googled and one of them was an equivalent! Unexpected bonus. I got the fairings off easily, dropped the oil, removed the filter, to gain access to the starter motor. I had a moment because it was secured by 8mm bolts, one of which was very tight. Such a small bolt I was scared I was going to strip the head or snap the bolt. It came free. Huzzah! It was a bit of struggle getting the new starter to line up with bolt holes. Worrying as I wasn’t 100% sure the starter was for my model. I got it done and all is peachy. It starts on the button, no whirring, no drama. When I stopped rushing about I started feeling weak again. I had an early tea to give me energy. After a while the weakness passed and I felt fine again. My brain was fizzing and I was even starting to get frantic. Brilliant! I’ve so missed being me. I had a cup of tea to give my tea time to settle, then went for a run. 8 miles at 8 m/m average pace. For right now, that’s pretty OK. Today I was still feeling fine, mentally. I went the shop, improvised, adapted and overcomed a problem with our mop, checked the oil level and the starter motor on the VFR again, then got into the shed. I pulled the gearbox out of the Harley so it’s ready when my replacement part arrives. I pulled the carb off, adjusted the enrichment screw and replaced the carb seal rubber, put it all back on. I was feeling cold and like I wanted to stop but I pushed on. I removed the standard exhaust (not the simple job you’d think) and built and mocked up the fitting of the new, upgraded, 2 into 1 exhaust. The endcan to 2 into 1 piece is as tight as Tory charity, but the downpipes to 2 into 1 are a bit slack so I’ve had to order some exhaust gasket sealant before I fit it properly. It looks the business though! The […]

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 […]

I’ve had some anxiety and some tiredness since my last blog but nothing to write home about. I did an easy 8 mile run yesterday and today set out for a half marathon to set a starting distance for my weekly Long Slow Run (LSR) today. Wendy needed to go and get bloods done and was looking very washed out so I thought I’d go with her. That meant I had to set off a nippy pace. I did an 8.05 first mile which was a bit too fast for a foundational LSR, then got a bit faster,7.55 7.40s, then a few 7.30s. That’s way fast for me for a LSR, especially as I’m just returning to training. I looked at my time at 9 miles to see what it would take to get a sub 1.40. Roughly sub 7.30. I nearly killed myself 7.18, 7.23, 7.21, 7.21 but I scraped it in at 1.39:58. I’ll take that. 10 minutes off my best, but I didn’t set out to run fast. It was supposed to be LSR. And I put the maximum effort in at the point where I was wanting to slow down, so good effort. When I got back Wendy insisted on going on her own after all. So that was unnecessarily hard for nothing. I don’t appear to have done any physical damage and I’ve not triggered any long covid (so far), so it’s all good. Now I have to get a plan and stick with it. Gradual, carefully planned gains are better than stupid, impromptu flat out efforts. I’m still struggling a bit to find motivation to do my bike. I had two proper jobs left to do on the Harley. Fix the grinding/ refusal to go from neutral to first gear and sort the ‘needs choke to run’ problem. I read up on both. The first seems to be clutch adjustment. Read how to do it properly in the manual. Slacken all the tension off the clutch cable, adjust the clutch, then tension the cable. I did it the other way round. It’s made a big difference to the clutch. It flicked into gear with the engine off, but my battery didn’t have enough juice to start the engine so I couldn’t give it a live test. I am hopeful though. The battery going flat again lead me to a small side job I’d been putting off, swapping the regulator/ rectifier unit. That is probably why the battery isn’t recharging. I took my old one off, snipped some wires, put the new one on and… it doesn’t fit. Super. It’s about 1 or 2 millimeters too wide to fit between the down tubes of the frame. The reg/rec has an electrical component and the frame around it is just a finned radiator affair to cool it down. I think I can grind off the excess without affecting the unit. The battery is on charge. I can test if I’ve fixed my gear problem tomorrow. Then […]

It’s only 3 days since my last blog, but bloody hell! After that sudden bout of long covid smashed me halfway through my last blog I’ve had two terrible days. So much anxiety. It felt like I was barely holding back a full blown panic attack. I had to settle back into long disused management techniques. Just think about the next 30 seconds, break everything down into the next immediate task, accept overwhelming fear and keep on keeping on. Then I was getting bouts of weakness so bad I didn’t think I could walk from my truck to the office. And through it all was the mental fog, the complete absence of drive or enthusiasm. I didn’t really notice the last until today when it lifted and suddenly I was “Next job! Next job!” All fired up and keen to crack on, back to my usual restless and obsessive self. It was such a joy it’s hard to describe. I teared up at one point. The anxiety was so bad I’d started to think I’d gone loony again and it was going to an ongoing thing I was just going to have to accept. So the relief today was incredible. Even if it smacks me again tomorrow I can remember it’s just slamming me in bouts, it’s not necessarily permanent. Today I sent off a stress email to work, went the shop, removed the broken heater element from the cooker and went to town to get a replacement (they were out of stock so I’ve ordered one off Amazon, I’ll fit it tomorrow.) cleaned inside the oven while it was open, went to the barbers (also stresses me out) and got my haircut, went for a 6 mile run to burn off any excess anxiety, and played with my Harley. And, so far, (22.00) I’ve not had any covid flare up. It’s like it’s just gone away. I’m expecting it to come back, but I’m taking it as a sign that there is an actual end in sight, it’s not going to drag on forever. I felt OK last week, to be suddenly battered with it again was worrying. And, now I think of it, I still had the mental fog/ depression of thoughts last week. It’s only today, now that it’s lifted, that I remember what it’s like to be me, normally. Getting anxious again now it’s bedtime. I’m scared when I stop the anxiety is going to come back. Or that I’ll wake up a wreck tomorrow. In fear of fear. The saddest state. I’m going to suck it up and crack on. Later, Buck.

I think I’ve got long covid again. I was hoping it was just a difficult, slow, recovery, but some days are fine, some hours are fine, and I think I’m imagining it, then it hits again. That’s a very covid feeling. I am lacking in mojo, and I’m not getting frantic from doing nothing. That in itself is a worrying sign. Usually I’m either obsessing over bikes, running, or doing dozens of jobs while I avoid doing the thing I should be doing. I had 4 days off last weekend and didn’t touch my bike. Yesterday was my day off, my parts have arrived for the Harley and still I did nothing. Admittedly I woke up with a crap headache that just got worse, but I just couldn’t face doing anything. When the headache finally cleared (about 19.00) I felt so (relatively) good that I cleaned the bathroom so I wouldn’t feel the day was a total waste. That left me feeling weak and knackered. Today I got up, walked to the shop, then sat in the kitchen feeling wasted and wanting to go back to bed. I forced myself into the shed. I took the tank, air filter, and carb off. As usual, little things to make it tricky. I got it done. I thought my new carb was jetted for 883, so I popped it open (again, unforeseen difficulty. Brand new carb, brand new screws, that had obviously been tightened with power tools. I had to use an electric impact driver tool -sure there’s a proper word for it, but my brain is fried- to get the screws out. One of them just stripped. I had to saw a slot in the brand new screw to get it out.) After I’d got the jets out I noticed the ones in the new carb were actually bigger than the ones in the up-jetted old carb, so (after checking in the manual) I replaced them. So that was a waste of time, effort and one screw. The new carb had the VOES (Vacuum Operated Electrical Switch) pipe blanked off with a rubber cap, so I left that on, didn’t connect the VOES pipe, and blanked off the pipe from the tank (screwed a screw into the end of it). In theory that should have sorted the fuelling. I put everything back on and fired her up. So that’s a big yay. Then I added the all important sticker. It starts and runs (on choke). I still have to replace the reg/rec but that’s not a big job, if I can force myself to do it. Then I have to take it for another shake down test run and see what else needs sorting. I’ve got a bad feeling about the clutch/ gears. Everything is such an effort at the moment though. All I want to do is sit and scroll through my ‘phone. I got halfway through this, musing over whether it’s slow recovery or long covid, when it smashed […]