A Tale Of One Harley - and a whole lot of grief. LONG

NB. This is a Tale, a sort of story if you like the sort of thing I'm
moved by the muse to write and post here every now and again,
frequently about animals. It goes on a bit, so if you aren't
interested, have a life or anything even slightly urgent to do, move
on now. Oh, and it isn't about animals this time.

P.S. I may have just invented this on the patio five minutes ago over
a fag. It is a Pre Scriptum, so it goes at the beginning, rather than
the usual Post chappie that goes at the end.

I felt the need for an introduction, because this Tale is a deviation
for me, largely because it is rather more on topic than most of my
stuff and because the muse has moved me to write it in a rather wordy
and full-length style, rather than my usual précised and rather
staccato style. I just wanted to see if I could do it and whether it
would work, so forgive me if it isn't the usual fast-moving rapid
fire, wisecracking gear, as it is in the nature of an experiment.

It is also organised (rather loosely, I confess) into Chapters, in
tribute to the putative subject matter which is a Harley-Davidson and
the people around it. It doesn't have the de rigeur and to be honest
rather dated footnotes, as they would be a bit lost nineteen Page
Downs down below. So what would normally live in a footnote instead
will reside within parentheses at the appropriate point instead.

If you're still with me, I hope you can fight off the boredom for long
enough to have a giggle with (or even at) me - oh, and if any scum
sucking bottom feeder posts a five-word response at the bottom this
without a lot of snipping, I'll come round and stick a bat up your
nightdress, OK? Bloody hell, I've just thought of a way to help the
hard of snipping ...
--
Pip B12


CHAPTER ONE


A mate of mine, I must confess, has a Harley. That's not his only
problem, but it is one of the biggest. A beautiful, shiny and very
loud Heritage Springer,
(http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcharley/springer.html ) adorned with
more H-D branded accessories than you could shake a polishing cloth at
in less than four hours. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to
criticise the aficionados of the Milwaukee Masterbatorium - for
motorcycling is a broad church (which is just as well, 'cos a Wide
Glide takes up a lot of nave space) and I realise that merely owning a
Harley is just the tip of the iceberg, as one becomes part of The
Lifestyle.

He sidled (inasmuch as a 6'4" brick shithouse in leather jeans and
Screamin' Eagle waistcoat can sidle) over to me in the pub the other
evening, mumbling out of the corner of his mouth that he had a little
difficulty. This isn't exactly unusual, he has difficulties with
women, hangovers and taste in clothing - but this was different, he
had a problem with his bike.

"It won't rev up, mate" he whispered hoarsely, a tear in the corner of
his eye. "It starts fine, but as soon as I take the choke off it goes
down to tickover and won't rev past it". Instant diagnosis, broken
throttle cable. "Yeah, the throttle feels funny, like really light".
That's it, then. "Could you pop round and have a look at it", came
the dread words. Oh, ****. No going back from here ....

Now, I've done a bit of spannering, but never on a Harley. Fiddled
with Harley-powered chopped stuff, but never laid a tool on a proper
Harley in anger. I do know people who have laid serious spanners on
Harleys with purpose, though - Molly, in a previous life ... look what
happened there: and Gyp of course ... and look what happened to him!
Anyway, faced with this enquiry, I could see the learning curve going
up and away from under my feet, just as the rug was going down and
away from under them.

Still, he bought me another pint and my resolve weakened sufficiently
to agree to "Take a look". I mean, how difficult could it be? It's
only a throttle cable, and all throttle cables are the same - hooked
to a twisty bit at the top and a turny bit at the bottom - it's only a
Bowden cable and all Bowden cables are created equal, no matter what
they're fitted to ... unless it's a cloak-and-dagger type with a
Walther up his sleeve, I suppose.

A couple of days later, I braved the frosty morning and started
filling the car with tools. Throttle cables are always bloody awkward
as there's bound to be a multitude of nasty little screws, there's
always going to be an awkward nut and bolt, and often some plastic to
be prised. Not to mention the end fittings calling for the
application of long-nosed pliers and levers and wedgy things to defeat
the return springs. I seriously considered lobbing the whole top
toolbox in the car, but considered the weight first - so I just
emptied the box into the boot.

Harleys don't use metric fasteners of course, and I'm fairly thin on
Imperial weaponry these days. Mole grips, they're the answer - and a
shifting spanner, and a Stillson just in case. Oh, and a hammer or
two, a set of drifts, and that funny grey plastic case with every
screwdriver bit ever invented; and all my pliers. I'd only be a
couple of miles down the road, so I could come back for anything I'd
need. Hah.

Did I mention that I've never dismantled a Harley?

He made me a cuppa in his very clean and tidy kitchen, adorned with
only a few items Harleyish (did you know that the Harley-Davidson
clock revs, on the hour? This one does:
http://www.amazon.com/Harley-Davidson-Motorcycle-Clock-Hourly-Chimes/dp/B000I3TI3E
) then showed me into his garage. Clean, it was. Pretty much empty
apart from very few bits of residual junk around the edges, and a
reasonable collection of useful 'stuff' - but definitely tidier than
what I'm used to. He prolly keeps his socks organised, just like Loz.


NB: a Heritage Springer takes up a lot of space, even in a double
garage.


Rule One: Know Your Enemy: nice chrome sidestand, made from girders,
bearing on a moulded-to-fit-the-stand H-D branded stand puck. Lots of
leather, lots and lots of tassels. Vast areas of sparkling chrome and
shiny two-tone blue paintwork. Immaculately whitewalled,
well-scrubbed H-D Dunlop tyres. Engine bars, forward controls,
highway pegs, auxiliary lights, sculpted and twisted chromed slashcuts
you can check the valve clearances through, an acre of perspex
windshield and chromed switch covers ... getting the idea?

The thing is vast. Not vast in a Blingmobile/Wing way, impressive in
its vertical bulk alone, but in a Christmas tree modelled on a
supertanker sort of way. Intimidating in its sparkliness, it looked
down on me through its tassels, from under its bepeaked lights.

I wasn't going to let the beast get the psychological advantage this
early, so seizing the initiative and the throttle, I gave it a twist.
No resistance, no returning urge. Lifeless, it stayed twisted. I
could tell it was twisted despite the eye-defeating rubbery rectangles
inset within the chrome grip, because just inside the
chrome-with-gold-accented bar end (H-D branded, natch) there's a
vestigial projection, made of chromed steel with rubber insert, that
allows the long-distance highway rider to apply throttle with the heel
of the hand rather than having to keep the Harley-begloved mitt
wrapped around the unfeasibly large-diametered throttle grip.

The lever pointed downwards, a sad reminder of my purpose.

So, to the chase: I traced the run of the cables from the throttle
grip to where they disappeared beneath the bulging tank. Somewhere
between the (inevitably) chromed and finned cylinders there must live
a carburettor (or should that be 'carburator'?) Sure enough, I could
make out a carb top lurking in the shadow of the chromed air filter
body, the like of which I last saw adorning the bonnet scoop of a
supercharged Funny Car, replete with triple butterflies.


I couldn't see a cable though.


Rule Two: Put Your Finger On The Problem: I got a torch from the car
and peered into the space between the cylinders. Eyes smarting from
the multiple reflections, I resorted to feeling my way forwards.
Eventually, I contacted what was undeniably a Bowden cable. With a
fingertip. Fucker.

If there is anywhere that even a dedicated Harley owner cannot polish,
it must be that No Man's Land between the cylinders, behind the air
filter and under the tank. That NML where the carb hangs out, that's
the one. Even with a powerful torch, I could not make out what was
going on in there, as all was covered with a uniform but thankfully
non-sticky film of matt blackness. No contrast to aid the seeing, no
details visible, just an amorphous lump of light-absorbent blackness.
Fucker.

I had to heat and melt the stem of a toothbrush (never leave home
without one) to be able to get its bristles into the right place, then
two minutes with a drop of petrol and a quick scrub and eventually
cables and a pulley/quadrant arrangement on the side of the carb
stuttered reluctantly into view. Working by the light of a single
LED-onna-stick, aided by the reflections from the cylinder caps, air
filter housing and the luscious tank paintwork, I had a perfunctory
prod at the cables. Slackness was apparent in one of them; it bent
away from the inquisitorial fingertip and stayed bent.


Rule Three: Consider Your Options: stepping back, unkinking the spine
and standing up straight, the Springer didn't get any smaller. Time
for a fag. The quiet mental time allocated to a familiar task is a
time that often allows useful thoughts through the haze of confusion,
I've found - so I rolled a fag and stepped outside for a minute. It
was obviously time to start dismantling, but where to start, that was
the pointy end.

I couldn't ask the owner, as he'd taken his dog out for a walk - so
that was the brains of the operation chasing sticks and rabbits for a
while (while the dog sat and laughed, I guess) - and although he's
good at many things, spannering his bike isn't one of them, which is
why I was at the pointy end. I cast around the garage, in the faint
hope of turning up a Book Of Lies of any description, but found only
cleaning and polishing tackle in any quantity - and a big, thick book
emblazoned with Harley crests and badges. Accessories. Every damn
thing you ever dreamed of sticking on or hanging off a H-D, in four or
five varieties, to make your Harley look unique. Bollocks.

During the second fag, following the hand-blowing and foot-stamping to
fend off the insidious chill, it struck me. It wouldn't unhook easy,
and even if it did, the new one would not hook in easily, oh no. The
thing would have to come apart and it might as well come apart now.


Rule Four: Logical Process: the tank has to come off, right? Sooner
or later, that big beautiful bulging blue bloater of a gas tank has to
come off - so it might as well be now. I did fleetingly consider
whipping the air filter off, but on examination it proved to be hewn
from a solid lump of chrome and then fixed to the carb with
severalteen bolts, all with different heads (by design, but more of
that later), not to mention the cables of unknown provenance and funky
cotton-braided pipes weaving their way around it and connected to it
in mysterious ways. No, we'll go for the big one: have the tank off
and shed some light on the problem in a big way.

Right: every tank I've taken off in the past has been attached by one
or two bolts at the back, sometimes another at the front or
underneath, usually a hook arrangement or even a couple of rubber
bands. It frequently seems that tanks rely on the outlet pipe(s)
combined with the weight of their contents to stay on the bike, that
and having nowhere better to be at the time. A couple of really funky
tanks have a release at the front and a hinge at the back (unless one
Hogs the job and dismantles the incredibly complex double-pivoted
hinge and then wonders what it was for and why it was so complicated
<cough>).

Reverting to Rule One, I had a good look around the tank. An obvious
bracket lower front, a tap left rear with a pipe to the carb and a
couple of other connections and what appeared to be a balance pipe
running from one side to the other, passing beneath the bracket. A
piece of the proverbial, then.
Perhaps not - forward of the funky braided leather (tank protector?)
strip running from the front of the seat halfway up the top surface,
there's the instrument pod. Speedo, tacho, fuel gauge (showing,
mercifully, quarter full) and an array of idiot lights set into the
inevitable chunky chrome surround. No visible means of attachment -
or, come to that, detachment.

Right then - the seat will need to come off, to expose the fasteners
securing the rear of the tank, that'll be straightforward. I had the
keys, all I'd need to do would be to find the key-operated seat
release and I'd be flying.

Ten minutes of ferreting, burrowing and easing leather tassels aside
and I was no wiser. There was a certain amount of head shaking and
beard pulling going on by then, as I'm sure you can appreciate.


A rumbling rattle, a squeal and a slam announced the arrival of a
possible saviour. The owner's ex-wife, PostBurd to the parish and
as-was regular pillion on the very seat in question. If anybody
should know how to pop her ex-arse rest, she should, Shirley. No,
Shirley isn't her name but that's not important right now.

Around the rear of the Royal Mail van she came, cutting a fine figure
in her Winter uniform of skin-tight, navy Lycra trews and well-stuffed
bodywarmer, high-heeled boots scattering the frosted gravel of the
drive aside, blonde mane glowing in the low, weak sun. As she
strutted towards me, I found myself whistling the Horst Wessel
(http://www.worldmilitaria.com/newsite/Media/HorstWesselLied.mp3 )
under my breath. She fixed me with her steely blue gaze and I shut
right up. "Wotcher up to, darlin'?" she asked, dispelling the
Rheinmadchen illusion completely.

Locked in a BurdHug by her whipcord, parcel-hurling biceps, I could
only croak a response. I did manage eventually to disentangle
sufficiently to ask her the question, however (no, not *that*
question, you pervs, I know the answer to that one) and she
goose-stepped remarkably gracefully to the side of the Harley.
Bending at the waist, she pointed at the rear corner of the front
seat. Everso gently, she reached up and taking hold of my beard
between finger and thumb, brought my head round from my examination of
her excellent arse to point an elegant finger at a bolt head I had
noted but disregarded. "Whip that one out, and its mate on the other
side and the saddle will come orf in yer 'ands, darlin'", she assured
me.

That wasn't what I was minded to whip out, but perhaps this wasn't
quite the time or place, really.

Anyway - out with the spanners. I slipped into a pair of latex
gloves: uniquely, not to keep my hands clean but to avoid getting
fingermarks on the bike. That, and I like the feel ;-) The chrome
dome nut was prolly half inch AF in Milwaukee, but one of Mister
Snap-On's 13mm Flank Drive™ sockets seemed to grip it adequately. It
cracked off easily enough, but all too soon the feel went wrong and I
knew there must be a nut on the back of it. Arse.

In with the superannuated ½" spanner, lift the tassels carefully out
of the path and feel the way. Rotate the socket and feel the spanner
jaws slip on ... and off the hex. Away with the ½", in with the 11mm
(functionally exactly the same as 7/16", of course) to much better
effect. Holding the spanner in the left hand, the ratchet rotating
the socket with the right and the tassels with my teeth I soldiered
on. On and bloody on, the bolt threads went on for ever. I thought
"He's not had the seat off for a while, then", as the resistance to
rotation didn't ease - once the nut and its associated washers finally
came clear the answer was clear to see - a Nyloc nut, of course.
That, and a bit of rust on the chromed threads. Of course, being a
big twin, the vibration factor would call for Nylockage on every
fastener, or the thing would disassemble itself before the first
junction.

Anyway, the little bastard yielded in the end and I started on its
symmetrical mate. Halfway down the thread, the resident outhouse
strolled in looking a bit rabbity around the edges and asked what I
was doing. I gently released the mouthful of tassels and told him I
was taking his seat off. "Not like that you're not, you fuckwit", he
grinned - "You're taking off the chrome rail that goes around the arse
rest". Oh, bollocks. "Where did you get that idea from?" he
enquired, not grinning at all ... much. Not wishing to stir up any
ex-marital strife, I let him think it was my own brilliance.
Buggeration.


Fortunately, his knowledge of his ride extended to seat removal, and
he took me around to the very rear of the Harley. "That one there",
he told me. There - where, I wondered. All I could see was a rivetty
affair in the mudguard. Getting a bit of light on it helped, as did a
peer through the specs. A dirty great cross-headed machine screw,
tight against the pillion pad. Dunno HTF I missed that one. He
reckoned he had a screwdriver to fit it, too, so I stood aside and let
him lead the way. It didn't really fit of course, neither did either
of the lads I'd brought in, but a swift rummage in the car brought up
a monster 'driver that I've abused for decades as both a drift and a
prybar, in direct defiance of the instructions on the stickers.

Slipping the Ultimate Deterrent (Unscrewing Section) down the backrest
and carefully negotiating the everso shiny chromed luggage racklet, I
engaged the screwhead and gave it one. Half a minute later the
pillion pad was off and I could see the real seat bolts looking at me.
At that point the ex-pillion strolled back in bearing refreshments -
I'd love to say she had a pair of cuppas balanced on her tits and a
plate of biscuits perched on her arse, but it just isn't true. There
were no biscuits. Looking for something to stir the tea with, I found
that there was no spoon either, but that's getting off track a bit.

Getting somewhere at last, I casually whipped the seat bolts out and
revealed the back of the tank. No bolts. Nothing, nada to be seen.
Risking an investigative finger, I lifted the rather lovely braided
leather tank protector with a gloved finger and it popped up, the
peeled outwards all the way to the bottom of the clocks. Bingo - two
dirty great bolt heads looking at me through the tendrils of various
wiring looms running over them. Time for a cuppa.

Vital cuppa time, for I had time then for a natter, during which it
came out that the big fat tank was actually two tanks. Split down the
middle, as it were. That explains a lot - how they get the clocks in
(I always thought they were inset, and I'm sure some are); why there's
a balance pipe at the front and why the securing bolts are in the
middle, going straight into the spine of the mighty frame.

Into some straightforward stuff at last, the lower front bracket came
apart (all four bolts) followed by the hose off the tap and the two
big boys (17mm aka 11/16") out of the middle - one for each side of
the two-part tank. Cool - and then, a wiggle. Nothing. I'd had six
bolts out of the big blue beauty and it still felt like it was welded
in place. I had a bit of a beard tug and a wander around the thing,
then to avoid deepening the furrow I was wearing in the concrete
floor, outside for a fag. It turned out to be well timed though, as
it gave me free rein to observe the departing Lycra flexing and
straining to keep its seams straight as it was strutted back to the
van.

Dismantling a bike, as Forrest Gump's Mum might have said, is like
knocking over a line of dominos. You have to start at the right end
and knock 'em over one by one until all is laid flat out in front of
you. I got the light-onna-stick out again and had a good crawl
around, but couldn't see any other means of attachment anywhere. The
tank was still as solidly mounted as it had been an hour previously,
like it had bloody well growed there.


Rule Five: Know When To Beat An Honourable Retreat. I've done enough
of this to know when I'm bested. It is often as well to lose a battle
in order to win the war, even if it prolongs the struggle. I'd been
frank with the owner as to my lack of H-D clue, and if all was lost,
at least I'd have saved him a wunner or so at the dealer when they
came to dismantle the thing: we'd stick it on my trailer and whip it
up there - it was no less rideable partly dismantled than it had been
without a throttle, after all. I hate doing it, but it had to be
done. I'd need to collect some cans for draining the fuel in any
case. With all these means of justification and some others invented
on the spot, it was only with slight embarrassment that I shuffled my
gear together and fucked off, promising to return. Arse.

Chapter Two to follow, if you think it worthy.

 

Will there be crocodiles?

 

Pip wrote:

Please for chapter two.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Cane says...

Or plastic dinosaurs?

 

Pip wrote

<snip>

Did you by any chance catch Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on
the radio last week as the book at bedtime?

It might have been the week before.

 

No, except for one episode repeated in the morning, but I have it as
'tape' book somewhere as a birthday gift from SWMBO some years ago. Was
the Beeb version abridged? The version I have is. Not bad if you have
never read the original, but a bit disappointing if you have.

As to Pip's Tale of Two (Narrow V)[1] Cylinders - bring it on.
[1] Note the avoidance of passé footnotes - oh, as you were.

--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Pip wrote:


Snip tale of discomposition.
BTDT <g>
Awaits Ch 2

 

Looking forward to it

 

Pete Fisher wrote

Pass. I only caught a few minutes towards the of the end of the
readings, I expect it was, they usually are and the clue is often in the
line "adapted for radio by..." in the closing credits.

 

I feel your pain.

As you can now attest, they are indeed a little different to work on.
Not necessarily harder, just different.

At least this one isn't cables inside the bars like some of them. Or
perhaps that's in chapter II

I'm surprised that you'd not realised that they were saddlebag tanks
before; it's a bit of a frustration. The model before mine had the small
tank - so small it didn't reach back as far as the seat. There was a
gap.

Mine's got the slightly larger (2 and a bit proper gallons rather than 1
and a half) one piece tank, but (AFAIK) all the big twins and a couple
of the custom Sportsters have 2-piece tanks with either instruments or a
bit of leather or similar between. So the ones with the big tanks have
still got small capacity IYSWIM.

Anyway, get on with your writing, I'm expecting the next instalment
soonest

 

Absolutely. I love it.

 

<Snippage>

Absolutely superb!! You cheered up an otherwise tedious Friday in the
office!

Definately

 

Yes please.

 

Here you go, then - get a coffee:


This is, as you may observe, Chapter Two. Chapter One, being the
first part, was posted some time earlier and helps make sense of this
Chapter, IYSWIM.

Chapter Three, The Return Of The Cable, may appear some time later,
depending on a) being able to source a cable, b) the cable arriving
and c) my being able to fit the cable within, say, 400 lines without
too much embarrassment.

Thanks for your persistence.

--
Pip B12


CHAPTER TWO - The Ginger Strikes Back.


I wore a fair furrow in the patio that evening, puzzling over the tank
enigma. Chin on chest, hands in pockets, fag in gob, I walked /miles/
pondering the tankery quandary. I did some extensive googling (not on
the patio, indoors on the PC, you pedantic bastards) and read a lot of
Harley message boards that night. There really isn't a lot of hard
spannery type info about, or not that I could find, anyway. There
wasn't even a picture of the beast I was trying to wrestle, not on
google images, not even on eBay, as far as I could see. I

t seems that just about every Harley owner in the States knows an
upside-downy head in a bandana who knows everything there is to know
about every Harley ever made, does the job in minutes and charges next
to fuckall, for the love of The Lifestyle. Either that or they only
ever polish their twinkly driveway ornament and never ride the damn
thing so it doesn't ever need any work doing on it. Or perhaps the
besuited accountants-by-weekdays who morph into bechapped Angels at
weekends have enough money to simply throw the thing into an
Authorised Dealership and pay the (no doubt as chunky as they are)
bill when it's all done.

What this all adds up to is that no bugger does their own work on
their own ride, so no bugger has to ask questions about it. The flip
side of this is that them that knows keeps a damn tight lid on it and
the dealers over here take your eyes as well as your back teeth out
for working on anything from the Milwaukee Massive.

I did learn some vital stuff, though. I now know 24 ways to tie a
bandana and how to untangle my tassels in an emergency, the
differences between obscure models and the obscure differences between
types of flame paint jobs. I also learned the difference between
Sturgis and Walpurgis - there isn't much.


A couple of days later I loaded tools into the car again and set off,
perhaps a little more prepared this time. First job was to drain the
"nearly empty" tank. Fortunately a Gentleman of a Nautical Bent had
seen fit to bestow on me what he called a Stetson Tank, on account of
it holding six gallons. Usually to be found in the stern of a boat
with an outboard motor, it has a proper cap, a proper outlet and even
a gauge. Infinitely preferable to pissing about with a bunch of
five-litre plastic things, with their Spliteasy plastic tubes, their
CrackEmUp convolute bits and their all-too-easy to lose self-departing
Crossthread caps. Takes up a fair bit of space, mind.

For what good it would do, I slipped into the regulation latex gloves
(they don't like fuel much, they dissolve a bit and split a lot, very
quickly) and removed both tank filler caps. Works of art in their own
right, no doubt selected after much heart and wallet searching from
the lustrously illustrated Accessories Catalogue, they're heavily
chromed and bear the H-D Crest And Eagle, the logo picked out in gold.
Not only that, they're surprisingly heavy and take some bloody
unscrewing too.

The depth of the plastic thread which secures the cap into the filler
neck came as a bit of a surprise as well, as at something over three
inches it precluded what I intended, which was to slip a bit of cling
film or plastic sheet over the filler and secure the cap again, to
control the inevitable Spurting Of The Fuel when the pipework was
released. All I could do was to stretch a bit of film over the
fillers and hope it would seal a bit, for long enough.

I still didn't know how to get the tank off, don't forget: but I was
going to drain the fuel out just to let the beast know I meant
business. I've used this sort of tactic successfully many times,
usually with resistant fasteners, when a "You're coming off anyway, so
you might as well give in NOW" whispered through gritted teeth (or
even gritted, through whiskered teeth) accompanied by a good lean on a
breaker bar usually results in said fastener giving up its grip
pronto, to my great satisfaction. Or shearing off, of course, but
that's the rough that goes with the smooth.

I positioned my oversize defuelling rig carefully, just in front of
the sidestand and made sure all I'd need (and a whole lot else
besides) was in easy reach (and that my smoking supplies and lighters
were well out of reach, as I have been known to get distracted at
times) and prepared to Make Petrol. I'd already removed the feed pipe
from the tap, so that was out of the equation: the drainage was going
to come from the balance pipe that equalises the fuel between the
tanks. This was why I was cautious, as there'd be two 'live' outlets
simultaneously released.

I bless my old mate the Snap-On man every time I undo a Jubilee Clip,
you know. Twenty years ago, he fast-talked me into buying a
screwdriver-handled flexible drive with a 3/8" square on the end. As
just about all the modern worm-drive clips have a hexagon on them now,
they'll take a socket. 6mm usually, sometimes 7mm - but it has meant
an end to struggling with a clip that hasn't been undone since
Methuselah was at school, with one hand holding the clip and the other
wielding a screwdriver with a pointy end. Not only does the socket
grip the hex rather than trying to rip it off, the clip is less likely
to rotate on the hose and even if it does, you can't do much stabbing
damage with a 6mm socket. My old Mum used to wonder about the
stigmata you know, and why it only happened to the left palm, usually
in winter and accompanied by the sickly sweetish smell of
antifreeze....

So I undid the clip far enough to be able to slip it back up the hose,
over the retaining bulge on the spigot and wiggled the little hose
about on its spigot, breaking the seal. Taking a deep breath, I
pulled the hose off with my left hand, slipping my left thumb over the
end as it came clear and my right thumb simultaneously over the end of
the spigot. Sweet. A solitary drop of petrol appeared on my left
thumb, hung for long enough to wink a sparkle at me in the weak sun,
then scintillated all the way down to the concrete where it neatly and
remarkably symmetrically became part of the floor forever. Awww.

Actually, it didn't remain petrol for long, as it mixed, mingled and
amalgamated with the dried droplets of Solvol and semen that naturally
come to coat the floor of any garage housing a Harley, to create a
thankfully short-lived life form that lived, thrived and dried on the
sub-zero concrete. I wouldn't like to try that again in Summer, mind,
especially on a humid day. We could end up with Vince II like that.

So: I'm sitting on a petrol can (no, that isn't where he's disappeared
to) in a garage that closely resembles a frozen polishing compound
warehouse, with my hands up a Harley's juice ports. This brings to
mind the old saw, "You've got her on her back, legs in the air, one
foot on the mantelpiece ... " and I was just about as fucked, tbh.
Much like the little Dutch boy, I'm holding back a flood - but unlike
him, I'm using both hands and it isn't water I'm retaining.

Fortunately, I had prepared. During the long cold hours of
patio-furrowing, I'd mentally rehearsed this procedure because having
played similar games before I know how easy it is to wear a very
uncomfortable sleeve full of petrol at this juncture. I also know
that vehicle owners *always* lie about the amount of fuel in the tank.
If you need to test-drive the vehicle, they assure you it's got plenty
in it and you run out in the middle of the first busy junction. If
you have to have the tank off, they swear the bloody thing is
damn-near empty and it turns out to be damn-near full, every bloody
time.



The first time this particular lie caught me out, it was a dear little
old lady, in reference to her Mini Traveller which had failed the MoT
test on the rear subframe and the tank, of course, had to come out.
The Traveller tank is a wide and shallow affair that fills the space
between the rear wheels and I'd specifically asked her when she booked
it in to ensure that she leave the tank as empty as she could. I'd
even checked with her when she left the little pseudo-hearse with us,
that she'd not got any petrol in it.

Once I'd run the rear wheels up on the ramps, dropped the exhaust and
undone all the bolts to the tank, it had occurred to me to check the
gauge but I trusted her and didn't bother. Pfah. I didn't drain it
either - I was going to let it lie, as it were, disconnect its plastic
pipe and leave it outside where it wouldn't fill the workshop with
vapour. The only thing holding the tank to the Traveller was the
filler neck, so I slid feet first completely under the car, grabbed
the tank with both hands and gave it a wiggle. Ten gallons of fuel
plus a steel tank weigh quite a lot, as they lie on your chest, you
know. Especially when your feet are wedged up front under the car and
there's nowhere to put the damn tank even if you can lift it, you're
seeing stars because the thing has landed on your chest a bit
unexpected like, and you've not got the strength to lift it 'cos you
haven't got any air in your lungs and you aren't going to get any air
in your lungs unless you lift it ...


So I always check for myself these days, I don't trust the owners and
I don't trust their gauges. I check the level and then I drain the
damn tank, just to avoid having to wait half an hour for a mate to
come and see how I'm doing, then wait another five minutes for him to
save my life while he stops laughing.

So I was ready this time, I was /prepared/. I folded the rubber hose
back on itself in my left hand, exposing the open end. Keeping a
right finger over the tank outlet, I took the hardwood plug (in a
previous life it had spiled a barrel of real ale and still tasted
faintly hoppy) out of my teeth and wiggled it into the hose end with
right thumb and index finger. It was only the work of a second then,
to take the draining hose from between my knees with my then free left
hand and slip it over the spigot, releasing the fuel from the Harley's
tank into mine, whipping the cling film off the filler as well. Oh,
I'm so smart. And smug, did I mention smug?

You know how pride goes before a fall? Weeell, just after I took the
film off the filler and we went full flow, just after the film
fluttered out of reach, just after the sound of trickling petrol
became evident, just then ... my bladder remembered how cold it was.
Sitting on a cold tank, listening to the merry trickle of fuel, having
to hold the too-big-to-let-go hose over the spigot while trying very
hard to cross my legs, humming a merry, distracting ditty - my pride
fell as my bladder assumed the dimensions, the capacity and for all I
know, the appearance of a pickled walnut.

Waiting for that "nearly-empty" tank (that one I'd checked and sloshed
and guesstimated to contain a couple of gallons) to drain (through a
spigot with an internal diameter of, ooh, let's call it 3mm to be
generous), I became aware of one of Nature's anomalies: in near- or
even sub-zero temperatures, sitting on steel that is holding
vapourising fuel, one's arse gets very cold, very quickly. At the
same time, not very many centimetres away, one's head gets very hot.
As the sweaty trickles generated by the bladder run into one's eyes,
one has a great deal of difficulty in remaining smug.


Spannering is a great way of restoring humility, you know. As long as
one can define humility as feeling stupid repeatedly, that is.


Ages passed, waiting for the fuel to drain. Ice Ages, by the air
temperature in the garage. I suppose I could have reversed the
process and put the balance hose back on the spigot, but that just
wouldn't be right - and I'd have ended up with the almost-compulsory
sleeve full of petrol, inevitably. Perversely, the only ditty that
would come to mind was "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay", which seemed
somewhat ironic at the time, but I went through it a few times before
the fuel finally ran out. As soon as it had, so did I. Out of the
garage and into the house like a wounded bull wildebeest sweeping
majestically (well, frantically) across the plain in search of a
refuge from the crocodiles and Perspex dinosaurs tugging at his
bladder.

There's another of Nature's anomalies: even after ripping through all
the cursedly overlapping layers of clothing (overalls and suchlike),
gripping one's cold-shrunken personal spigot in the approved manner
and pointing it at the porcelain - nothing happens. Even hopping from
foot to foot, which you would think would encourage assistance from
gravity doesn't necessarily help. I was seriously beginning to think
that the flow had reversed and my bladder had emptied itself through
my forehead, the sweating had become so intense. I'll gloss over the
details at this point, in deference to those of a refined disposition,
suffice to say that nature eventually took its course (about three
drops' worth, that's bloody all) and I was released (hah!) to return
to pissing about with the Harley.


I made my way back out to the beast, detaching shreds of latex glove
from my right hand as I went, to find that a good portion of glove had
already detached itself and was hanging, like a used condom, trapped
in the teeth of my trouser fly. That was close, wasn't it, lads? You
know what I mean....


I checked the petrol situation and all seemed well, so I thought I'd
have a fag before tackling the twin tank on the other side. Stepping
carefully outside, the cold hit me like a big cold thing. Casually
zipping my trousers back up to cut one intensely personal draught out,
I rolled a fag. How cold was it? Cold enough to freeze the flame off
your Zippo, my lad. Fortunately, as an experienced Zippo user, I had
a backup gas lighter to hand. This worked, although the fuel looked a
little slushy, like it was starting to crystallise. Damn, I thought,
I'm not putting that in my pocket.

The draining of the second tank went as it should and the gauge on the
catch tank showed four gallons. I was so glad it didn't all have to
go into plastic cans. All I had to do then was take the tank off.
I'd discussed this with The Spic, but as he'd worked on as many
Harleys as me that wasn't a fruitful road to follow. We had come to
the decision that the clocks had to come off, to expose the joint
between the tanks. The only problem was that I couldn't see a way to
remove the clocks.

I'd give a url, but there's no pics I can find on the web that
resemble the clocks I was looking at. [Bollocks there isn't - look
here:
http://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/ro...idson_heritage_springer_softail/photo_16.html
Ed.)
I suppose you'd call it an instrument nacelle or pod, it being hewn
from the solid chromium, about a foot long by six inches wide and an
inch thick, beautifully finished and hugging the complex compound
curves of the tanks. No visible means of attachment, just like the
tanks. I really didn't want to get the angle grinder out, although I
did consider just polishing my way through the gleaming creature just
to get at the bolts I hoped were concealed beneath.

There was only one way forward: a huge, stylised six-sided piece of
what looked just like chromed plastic, sitting dead centre between the
warning lights and the speedo. Six sided, hm? Like a hex, then? I
fitted a 17mm (11/16" is very close to that, the size of a Dolomite
Sprint cylinder head retaining stud hex) and gave it a cautious tweak.
Round it went, more easily as it revealed the thread to which it had
been screwed. Bingo! It was indeed what we might call a dome nut and
what the Yanks (I now know) call an acorn nut:
http://www.boltdepot.com/acorn-nuts.aspx and once it was off, a
minimal wiggle and the instrument nacelle lifted off. Full House! A
couple of (damn awkward) multiway electrical connector blocks released
and I could lump the impressively heavy pod off and lay it down
somewhere safe.

Once the instruments were off, it all became clear, as the remaining
two 17mm tank securing bolts were visible. A quick whizz with the
ratchet and those bolts were history too and the tank finally
responded to wigglings. I looked in the magnetic tray and did some
sums. Eleven bolts and a nut in the tray so far, all but four
involved directly in fixing the tank to the motorcycle. Three hours
of feeling my way 'in the dark' to get them out, too, but we won't go
there. Damn, but they build these things to last.

A fag and a cuppa later, some low-key wigglings and humpings and the
inevitable incidental decouplings of all the ancillary electrical and
vacuum connections to fuel tap, gauge and suchlike and two remarkably
heavy-for-their-size half-tanks were lying comfortably on newspaper
beds, well clear of the bike. Hah!

Now, finally, I could see most of the carb. I could even see the
quadrant which the cables ran around and the cables themselves too.
This revelation produced sighs of relief audible in Hertfordshire, let
me tell you.

It near broke my hairy old ginger heart, committing the cardinal sin
of cutting the cable tie securing the cable outer to the frame, even
closer to it when on close examination the tiny H-D logo embossed upon
the cable tie next to the twelve-digit serial number came into view.
Still, it had to be done. With the cable hanging free, all I had to
do was release it from the twist grip.

On home turf at last, the switch block was held together by recessed
hex or Allen bolts and lawks-a-mussy, they appeared to be metric! I
was surprised because during the bloody interminable time I spent
waiting for the first tank to drain, when slumped against the tank,
legs tightly crossed, I had the opportunity to observe the casings and
their fasteners from close range.

You never know a bike until you polish it, or at least spend some time
just idly casting your eyes over it from so near that it fills your
entire field of view. The main side casing, a beautiful teardrop
shape, was secured to the crankcase by a pair of internal hex Allen
bolts at the front, then an external hex conventional bolt, two
Torx-headed bolts, an external hex and a pair of Allens as the line
swept round. Very symmetrical, but what a PITA - three different
tools to remove one casing. I did check and the other side was
identical, so it must be by design, but beyond my ken. Not made for
ease of disassembly, as I'd found out doing my laughably minor job.

Anyway, I had the two Allens out of the switch block and had a little
tug at it. It didn't move, of course. Out with the LED-onna-stick,
on with the reading specs for an up close and personal exam. Past the
billet master cylinder, around the deeply shiny mirror stem and over
the pendant indicator stalk I went, until I found the sneaky-by-design
recessed self tapper, perfectly camouflaged to blend with its habitat,
in its coating of American chrome. That was swiftly despatched to the
tray, followed quickly by another one found lurking on the other side
of the underside. A judicious bit of levering on the quiet and the
block popped apart.

Removing the cable nipple from its location on the twist grip followed
SOP - what didn't was that only a couple of inches of cable came away
attached to the nipple. That'd be the seat of the problem, then - the
nub of all ills. Nice and shiny from the nipple, the cable shortly
discoloured and then got rusty, frayed and finally had snapped on the
bend of the tubular guide that lives beneath the switch block.

Even though there is a rubber boot covering the joint between the
cable adjuster and where it screws into the guide and the cable is
turned through 90 degrees to be taken up to the twist grip, water must
have accessed the tube and rotted away at the cable until it gave in
at the point of maximum stress. The adjuster yielded swiftly to my
old 3/8" spanner, pulling cleanly out of the tube (which I wasn't
going to remove under any circumstances as there appeared to be a
circlip of sorts securing it - and I didn't have my imperial pliers
with me), then all that remained was to pop the nipple out of the
quadrant at the carb end.

Finally, after four hours in total, I stood up with the two bits of
cable in my hand, just as the owner walked out with a steaming cuppa
for me. "That'll be pieces in our time", I announced, doing a bunk
for the bog again.

 

No, but I did read it years ago before I got into bikes - not that it
does what it says on the tin, iirc.

 

They certainly require every tool in the box.

No, it isn't. I am aware of such foul tricks, though. Common with
the chop and custom boys - looks trick, must be a bitch to service.

This one is a /big/ tank. Having seen a couple of Fat Bob types in
one piece I'd made the fatal assumption that they would all be
similar.

Done. The Muse is strong today. Off for a kip now.

 

Up to my elbows, iirc. I was, too. Like the reporter outside Number
Ten, I was cold, tired and pissed off. And odd, as always.

 

You're never right, you lot.

 

Game on. Have it.

 

And Part the Third?

Come on man - get yer writing fingers out! Some of us have a boring
Friday afternoon to fill y'know!

Phil