Free Wheelin'

When I got into motorcycles, my meager tool kit began to grow. Sockets, wrenches, and Allen and Torx kits, when my bikes got far more expensive than my earnings. A sign of dedication and youthful bravery.

Replace a clutch? Swap an engine? Patch a tube at 2 am on Montauk Highway?

Oh, sure. You betcha.

Age brought a temper to all that. Some tasks that I would quickly, albeit questionably, tackle – I am a bit more hesitant. As my brother-in-law wisely tells me all the time… “Get a guy for that!”

Still, when faced with some tasks, a devil and an angel take opposite sides of the argument, and sometimes opposite sides of my shoulders.

“You got this! What could possibly go wrong?”

“Why go to all this trouble…pay a real technician to do this.”

Then there is the monetary aspect of life.  \Ben Franklin said… “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Money saved by going Shade Tree is money that can be spent on guitars, Hot Wheels, comic books, and the other joys of life. That is, if it will be approved by Backroads’ fiduciary head, which is traditionally highly unlikely.

All this leads up to a confluence of occurrences that had me having a serious three-way discussion with me, myself, and I – not sure which one is the devil and which is not.

In one day, I had two stalwart machines betray me. My KLR 650 and my 1250GS.

One is a very simple bike with honest, simple fixes and prices that are modest as well. The other is not. 

BMW can mean Bring Much Wampum, or Burn My Wallet.

The KLR’s issue was a cooling system that was suddenly burying its temperature gauge. The BMW was a clutch that was not clutch, when a lot of power was requested.

Both would require some work. The Kawi could be a simple drop off at my friendly neighborhood shop (The Guy), or I could handle this myself. The clutch on a BMW? 

Both the angel and devil  fell down laughing, and then went to MWAG with arms around their shoulders, giggling.

I took a look at multiple YouTube videos – today’s equivalent of the Helmet of Knowledge from the Spock’s Brain TOS episode.

Shira watched me, watching these. Her eyes darted back and forth from me to our checkbook, which was suddenly beginning to smolder.

“Well,” she asked. “You think you can do this?”

Turning away from YouTube with wide and glazed eyes, I said half-heartedly… “It’s simple, Jim. Of course, of course… a child could do it, a child.” She asked who the hell Jim was.

Over the next week, I went about servicing both bikes. The KLR, being a KLR, was a straightforward and easy thermostat and coolant flush, and less than a C-note total.

The BMW… would be a bit more involved. The Germans would want nearly two grand for this operation – that is the equivalent of over 1,500 Hot Wheels cars, but 10 times less than Spider-Man #1. 

Relativity would not be allowed here. The checkbook now began to glow like an angry Chicago Pile.

On the other hand, a Rekluse replacement clutch, a known better option, was just half that. But reading Shira’s face, the orange and yellow light reflecting off her beautiful face from the burning checkbook, I went for option #3 – a set of EBC Clutch Plates, again around a C-note. The little tube of BMW Sealing Gasket Goop was almost as much. Germans.

Again, and again, I went to the YouTube of Knowledge…

I’ve been told I’m a child. I could do this.

It all started out well enough. Taking things apart, even methodically, is easy. Reassembly? Well then. 

Like Bones, in the middle of it all, I began to have doubts. Unlike McCoy, the BMW did not start telling me how to proceed.

“Yes, Brian, now install the oil-sopped clutch plates in specific order. Good, well done. Now the springs and plate, and torque down to EXACTLY 10 Nm. Don’t over-tighten them. It would not be good.”

The devil and angel were back in the barn again, and very drunk. 

“Go for it… just use a socket wrench. Ha, use a breaker bar!”

I looked at my old torque wrench, originally designed for boiler plates for the White Star Line. In my sad little mind, I had fleeting and impure thoughts of the ultimate torque wrench, the Snap-On 3/8" Drive Flex-Head TechAngle Torque Wrench, that cost about the same as the Rekluse Clutch package. Oh…if a wrench could be sexy. 

It is so beautiful, so state-of-the-art, that I could go pee, come back, and it would have the job finished. But the smoke from the last CBC (Check Book Conflagration) had just about cleared, so I’d only get to play with this late at night, on ToolHub or YouTool. 

In the end, I used a Quinn Torque Adapter from One Particular Harbor. $35 bucks American. It worked. There will probably never be a Snap-On 3/8" Drive Flex-Head TechAngle Torque Wrench in my tool box – maybe Hot Wheels has one?