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SHE'S GOING UNDER THE KNIFE
Here she is...on the surgeon's table...her oil tank has been removed, two tabs have been welded and rubber bushings installed. The mechanic also found the battery box mount was broke as well. Boys and girls, we got some welding going on.
When I arrived this morning all that had been completed. New oil lines drifting here and there and the lower gear box was laying open...she was a sick girl.
The first thing the mech. showed me was this strange image. I'm looking at a Jim's Lifter....with a spring in it that is much heavier than the other three.
The lifter and spring on the right is the odd ball. It appears to me like the springs we used on the big twins we built at Accurate Engineering in Dothan AL. I'm telling you the truth, the compression rate HAD to be at least 3 times the compression rate of the other three springs. I asked them...would this have done the racket? I mean come on...I've been running these lifters like this (obviously) for over 150K. The rockers looked really great....again it's commented...for a bike with this kind of high mileage, everything up here in the rockers look really good. The ball surface and the hammer surface look very good!
As I'm going through the exposed bike, I see some things that disturb me. One is a heavy wire encased in heat shrink to protect it. It's worn through it's casing, through the heat shrink and has even worn a groove in the lower case! I have never seen this before. The mech tells me it's the wire that goes to the stator. WoW...I'm thinking how the fuck is it that I haven't had to replace a burnt stator by now? Unbelievable.
I'm looking at the splines for the sprocket on the final drive. Dang...you know, I had noticed over the past couple years, a kind of jolt when the bike engaged the drive...I've never really thought about how the teeth of the spline will wear down like this...oh by the way ...the sprocket in the picture is one he wanted to use...it's smaller than the one in mine... which means I will lose top end.
I will gain some bottom end, but I'm not a speed racer, I'm a high mileage rider...as it is, I'm always searching for sixth gear that I don't have...so I am not going to cause my bike to scream at me asking for more....the sprocket he wanted to give me? Almost brand new, willing to give it to me fo$50.00 bucks. Ordering one from them? It would cost me almost 250.00 bucks...but...tell me this...for 200.00 dollar difference would you be happy with a loss of HP at the top end if you were a distance hauler like me? I think the money means less than the ride. Don't you? Of course they don't have one in stock.
One last thing to mention. The oil was coming from a hole worn in the oil line from being routed incorrectly before I bought the bike. It was laying against a portion of the battery box...and wore plumb through. The hole was as big as the tip-top of my little finger... Well whoulda thunk?