After grunting and swearing and taking several stretch-and-calm-down breaks, I finally got the last valve adjusted (yay!).
This stupid valve-adjustment has to be one of the most stupidly difficult things I've ever done. It's not that adjusting the valves was that hard (though it wasn't a walk in the part), it's that the previous owners had done some weird stuff to the bike.
Like this double-ended bolt holding on the rear intake valves on the hard-to-get-to side (and sealed with loc-tite, naturally).
It took me an hour of grab-twist 1/20th rotation-grab with a pair of needle nose vice grips to get that little bastard out.Why?
Why would anyone put that kind of fastener in that spot? It would have been easier to put a proper bolt in. The hardware store sells them for fifty cents (or less) each.
I can only assume that someone was fucking with me.
Making matters worse was the open-mike-night going on across the street at the coffee shop. "When the Lights Go Down In The City" wasn't good when Journey did it, and Steve Perry was a significantly better singer than whoever the yodeler at the coffee shop was. *
Well, I'm going to bed now, because I hurt and I'm severly annoyed and I want this dumb day to be over.
*Note to open-mike-night performers: Pink Floyd, Journey and Radiohead songs sound simple because the musicians in those bands were/are phenomenal. Even other bands who have made it can't perform them as well as the originals. Please stop covering them.
3 comments:
If your name was Earl you would say Karma was trying to tell you something with that bolt.
And the yodeler...
You sound like my youngest son. His 86 Interceptor is over here. Last night he spent four hours working on the bike. There's a cooling system leak and the back two cylinders don't seem to be up to snuff. He's had the valve covers off twice trying to check intake valve clearance. Last night one of the covers didn't seal and it started spurting oil. Back off came the cover and then he broke a bolt. He put an O-ring in a hose connection but it still leaks.
Finally he got disgusted and left. Not ahead by any increment. Sometimes you just got to walk away and let it sit!
Just because you're paranoid, by the way, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Sorry about my performance the other night, I guess I had a few too many! I'm getting ready for the American Idol tryouts, so I'll be back pretty much every night. You might want to bring your camcorder over and catch me on tape before I become rich and famous!
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