The title of this post sums up how my my build is going. My grand plans of a bad-ass bobber are being derailed by the fact that I can't get the little whore clutch to work.
Today started off well enough. I took an hour ride up north to Timonium, MD for a swap meet where I picked up some nice schwag. I scored a horn and cover ($2), spring for the solo seat I don't own yet ($10), a cool gas cap with some spikes coming off the sides ($15), a K&N air filter ($5) that needs a good cleaning and re-oil, and a fat gas tank ($25) that I hope I can modify to sit high up on the frame.
I loaded up all my new toys and headed home, motivated to dig into my troubled clutch problem.
The problem with the clutch is that it doesn't work. When I pull in the clutch lever I get nothing. The bike stays in gear. I initially tried adjusting the cable but couldn't get the bike to roll free when in gear. I decided it was time to take off the primary cover and see what the inside looked like.
I thought it was time to try out my new bike lift. I situated it under the frame and pumped it up about a foot. The lift seemed to work out well until I realized I couldn't drain the primary oil while on the lift because I couldn't fit a pan under it without the oil spilling out everywhere, so I dropped the bike, or at least tried to. I'm not sure what happened but the lift "stalled" and wouldn't come down. After fiddling with it for 15 minutes, and calling it a cunt in English and Italian, I pushed the bike off the lift. This sounds graceful but it wasn't. Luckily I didn't drop the bike on the ground or on me. Once the weight was off the lift went down and I rolled it out of the way. I drained the oil, then pumped it back up.
Once I got the primary cover off I didn't see any more issues inside the primary. The oil inside was fairly clean, but it seemed like there wasn't much oil (more on this later). I played around with the clutch assembly for a while, figuring out how it worked, then put the primary back on. Still nothing. I repeated this two are three times before consulting with my trusty Clymer manual, which instructed me to remove the clutch adjusting cap. I realize that would have been a logical place to start, but the thing was completely unwilling to loosen no matter how hard I wrenched on it was five different pliers and wrenches.
It was time for the big guns. I pulled out a big monkey wrench and a rubber mallet and talked dirty to it until it finally came free.I followed the manual's directions for adjusting the clutch about ten times, and still couldn't get the clutch to disengage. By process of elimination I determined (guessed) that the clutch plates were stuck together, probably from a lack of oil. I started to loosen all the nuts on the clutch plate but there felt like a lot of pressure from the clutch spring. I didn't have enough balls to let loosen them all the way, and that turned out to be a good thing, because I never wouldn't have gotten them back on as there is apparently a tool for this, which I of course don't have.
A quick consultation with the interweb taught me that I can make this tool with some threaded rod, a few buts, and a piece of flat bar, which I will pick up at Home Depot this week and try this process again next week.
In short, my build is going no where.
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