Was pissing down rain at 5:00 yesterday and I was looking forward to buggering off as it is show day holiday today in Cairns, long weekend Yee Hah!
Herself and I were going up to the wilds of Cape Tribulation on the grounds we haven't been there for a lot of years.
Anyway at 5:30 it was still pissing down, at about that time the bottle of Ballantines I keep in the desk for "emergencies' started to look good.
By 6:15 it looked like the rain had cleared so I hopped on the mighty KLE and pointed it at home. Set off, changed in 2nd and there was a funny "rustle, rustle, thump!" sound and all forward drive ceased. The old tart has taken to jumping out of a couple of gears lately so I tried a few of those, but no forward motion resulted.
"Its blown the gearbox, or clutch or something was my first thought".
I got off and the 4 month old DID "racing' 520 chain was laid out for its full length about 15m behind the bike. "Bugger" was my second thought.
I collected the chain using a plastic bag that was conveniently blowing down the street, pushed the bike back across the street, went upstairs and located the Ballantines.
I then rang "Wayne's motorcycle towing", Wayne said he was having a brisk evening and would be about an hour, he then asked me "what is it and will it roll." I told him and asked "do you need me to load it?" to which he replied "no".
The first result of the evening so far.!
I said "I'm going back up to my office to wait, give me a ring when you are outside." Wayne said that was cool, so Mr Ballantines and I settled in for the next hour.
Wayne arrived in a nifty little people mover with a very low tilt trailer behind it. I took him all of 2 minutes to singlehandedly run the KLE onto the trailer and secure it with a quite impressive number of tie-downs,
I chucked my shoulder bag, jacket, gloves and helmet into the back of the people mover and off we went.
Wayne said "you were not riding home like that were you?" I assured him that I wasn't pissed 2 hours beforehand when I was heading home, but if I wasn't pissed now I'd lose all faith in the Scotch industry. Anyway as we drove to Clifton beach Wayne took two more calls from motorcyclists in strife, I asked if this was a typical night and he said that it was really because he hadn't been called to a prang yet, they were all breakdowns, or people too pissed to ride.
The fare from town to our place was $110, a bargain and about $5 more than a cab would have been. If it weren't for the 1.5 hour wait Wayne would be my go-to call on the occasions when "just the one" turns into a bottle or two at the conservatory bar.
Anyway, this morning I've put it back together with a new master link. I reckon the old one has an interesting story to tell.
There are two failures, although only one caused the chain break (the other probably would have eventually).
The non-critical failure was that the pins were devoid of lubrication, proving that bloody 'O" rings work both ways. When I assembled that chain I smeared grease all over the pins and the holes in the links and then could not get the keeper to seat, eventually I used a chain rivet tool against the flanks of the link to force them together enough to get the keeper on - in the process I reckon I must have wiped all the grease off and then forgotten to replace it. Those pins would have failed eventually from lack of lube.
But what did it in was the pin that failed just below the groove cut for the keeper. Initially the link didn't break because the still fitted keeper held the outer plate on, but the inner plate would have been flexing ever so slightly it simply gave up just as I was going home last night.
I think I have every right to be pissed-off. I think I'll right to DID and see if they would like to come to the party with a new chain and master-link.
Think I'll write that one tonight - I thoughtfully chucked the remaining 1/3rd of a bottle of Ballantines in my shoulder bag last night and a bit of thinking fluid never goes astray.
Cheers
Tony Smith
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