Gumption Traps – I did everything right, how did this end so wrong?

Gumption Traps – I did everything right, how did this end so wrong?

With the taste of success in transplanting the heart of one beast into the chest of my little donkey it was time to move on and challenge my new found skills of motorcycle repair.

I had tackled a few fears.

1. I had ordered an engine online and it arrived with little to no concern. Other than the leaking oil from being shipped upside down, the installation and lack of drama pretty much sealed the deal on how this could be done. I considered this a fall back plan when in doubt. A new motor is just an ebay away.

2. It ran…it ran right away. Heck, I was even able to sell the bike for what it would have cost with the original motor. Granted, that does not say much about the resale value of the bike as a whole but it was nice to have a win in a couple different columns.

With ears open, the rumor that a wounded “Barbie” donkey was sitting in a fellow miscreants garage came through the grape vine.

Photo Credit – www.crosstowncycle.com

A call was made. Plans were hatched. Money was exchanged and the broken Barbie came home with me. I had entered the land of “catastrophic bearing failure”. 

The KLR 650 has a notorious little part called the “doohickey” that the internet blogs have likened it to the sternum of an elderly woman undergoing CPR.  The “doohickey” is part of the idler balancing system and is a stamped piece of sheet metal.  It is just a part until it fails.  When it fails, it becomes tiny particles of metal released within an operating motor and operating motors don't like floating bits of metal falling into places they shouldn't be. It becomes literal wrenches in the works.

(Sketch of the doohickey within gears.)

The Previous Owner (PO) had torn down the motor to its’ doohickey and found that it wasn’t the prime suspect. Suspect, heck, the culprit was a bearing within the counter balance system that not only fragged, but had pushed one of its’ balls (ouch) between the inner and outer race of the bearing assembly and was slowly shaving itself like ham at the deli counter.  The ball cage had fragged and the addition of shaved particles within had over time doomed Barbie Donkey to the life it was currently living, dust collection and propping of things against it. It occupied space, but with little purpose. (Insert Federal Government joke here)

Proudly I wheeled the bike into the back of the pickup, collected the bits and boxes that had been piled along side the carcass and brought home a perfectly simple project.  All I had to do was…

I hit the ground running, sleeves up, head long into the motor. First thing I did was find the exploded views of the motor online at www.bikebandit.com and found all of the slides that pertain to the motor.

Screen grab from Bike Bandit

I printed them out and made a folder that I could refer back to. Basically I made my own reference manual. Knowing that the ball bearing had been shaved down to fines within the oil, all of the bearings and seals were suspect. So I highlighted all of the seals, gaskets and bearings on the exploded view and I brought them to my local motorcycle supply shop. I'll plug www.crosstowncycle.com here. They have helped me over the years in more ways than I care to admit.

The cases were good and all of the associated castings and components would be fine from what I could tell. I laid the motor and its' bits out as I disassembled them and I took a ton of photos. Long live the digital camera. After each removal of part, I snapped a photo. It was something I could fall back on if the exploded view didn't make sense. I printed those photos out as well and added them to my folder. I felt I was keeping good tabs on how to reassemble the motor. I made a mental note to buy a printer for the shop.

(Hint: Look at the shaft in the upper mid right of the photo, those splines should be complete..the smooth diameter near the counter weight was worn away by the counter balance chain)

So things were moving along. I had a fileted motor. I had a list of parts on order. I had driven out all of the bearings. There were manuals, scrap buckets, photos, pieces of paper with important scribbles and circles with arrows and underlining and notes. This was going to happen. This motorcycle will live again!

Enter the “Gumption Trap”. Let's get the definition first. A Gumption Trap is defined as: an event or mindset that can cause a person to lose enthusiasm and become discouraged from starting or continuing a project.

There were 3x stages of Gumption Trap in this project. One, just an all out lose of drive. I didn't make time for the project, I didn't set deadlines, I procrastinated in cleaning parts and pretty soon it was 2-3 years in my shop as boxes of part, piles of new bearings to push in and suddenly the space we were renting was being moved to a different location in the building. Crap, my slightly dust covered real exploded view was needing to be boxed up to move. I considered selling the Barbie as boxes of discombobulated parts to the lowest bidder just to have it out of my sights. After looking over the carnage, I'd most likely have to pay someone to take it.

Notice 2x things in that previous paragraph. I can't tell you exactly how long I had this project at this point. 2-3 years...that is a long time and I lost track of the exact duration. And after 2-3 years, the move wasn't sudden....but if you drag your feet long enough, it becomes “suddenly”.

The most important piece to this trap was that I didn't set deadlines. I had nothing pushing me to accomplish this project. Just some scrap metal and monthly rent bills for the space. Time travels fast. Faster than you think. Set some goals man. Slap a piece of paper on the wall with dates, some sort of attainable sequence that allows you to realize you have been having too much pie and not enough work.

The second Gumption Trap was not understanding the absolute need to clean the used parts you are going to reuse before you start reassembling. Finding this out as you try to assemble the bike becomes an absolute train wreck. You have a goal for this hour of shop night to assemble this much, but you find yourself stopping, cleaning, stopping, cleaning. It is a goal crushing mistake I made and learned from.

The only thing that trumps dirty parts and efficiency is coming to a place in the build where you forgot to order a part and have to wait the week to get it shipped to you, dirty parts that require a quick scrub before installation will crush your progress to the point of exhaustion. So now the loose goal you had set in your head keeps getting pushed out as you wipe down the pump housing, degrease and grime on each nut and bolt, scrape off the old gasket, etc.  You become mired in what was once efficiency and now molasses.

And finally, the last trap I experienced was the frustration of just not knowing. So we got over the first Gumption Trap by just getting fed up and realizing you need to get this project done so you can move on. “Never again!” was called out numerous times. Much to the annoyance and skepticism of my DA. Granted, she had every right and understanding I was full of it, but still...never again. I got over the second Gumption Trap by cleaning the damn parts. I adjusted my goals, I set to work over the course of a few shop nights to just clean. Even down to wire wheeling each screw to be sure all the grim had been removed from the threads. We were making hay by this point.

After these setbacks I had 2x halves of a motor and it was down to marrying them and getting this damn thing back into the frame. This 3^rd Gumption was a hodgepodge of not knowing. First, I didn't dry fit the 2 halves because that would have taken 5-10 minutes and I don't have that kind of time (sarcasm font). Besides, all the bits are in place, the bearings are all new, all of the shafts are spinning and the doohickey has been replaced with a better one. Simply slap some gasket material on the rim and stick right? Wrong.

The same counter balance shaft that was worn down, the same bearing that failed, the same area in the motor after 3 years of my responsibility of this project was about to cause me even more grief. When I was figuring out my list of required parts, the shaft that had wear from the chain was still good in my mind. The components still fit on it, it seemed straight...why replace it. 

The splines are supposed to run the full length of the shaft. The smooth spot is where the counter balance drive chain wore the splines away.  The dark black and blue areas are from heat generated by the friction of the chain.  The guy taking the photo is the idiot that was going to save $40 buy reusing an obviously worn part.  Lessons learned.

Idiot. It was obviously damaged but my brain wanted the finish line, not another online order and waiting for delivery. As I began the torquing of the case half bolts, I noticed the region in question was tight and the shaft was not turning.

“Dammit.” The shaft must be bent and I just didn't realize this. Ok, so I now have something to do as I order my last part (sure...last part). Clean off the rim so I can apply more gasket material once the shaft appears. I wait a week, my shaft arrives, I am ready to do this. I head to the shop, slap the new shaft in, gasket material and press the halves together. Anyone want to guess what I missed there? Did I dry fit? Did I do anything to verify that this would work? Nope. And what happens when you save 2 minutes by not wasting 2 minutes on some foolish dry fit? You get a shaft that won't spin once the bolts have been installed.

Crap. It isn't the shaft. It isn't the bearing. The bearing is brand new. I installed it myself. So I pushed the bearing out again and reset it. I made sure to wipe everything down, clean the seat in the cases...everything. Hell, it is even uniform on either side were some of the bearings have a rim or ridge to create an appropriate offset. I slap the cases back together. Just as tight. Just as nonspinny.

Severe Gumption. It isn't working but I haven't done anything wrong? New parts, everything is right, right?

Obviously not. I step back. I realize I have 3+ years between disassemble and reassemble. This is a mechanism and if a mechanism isn't working, there is a part that is wrong. There is a process that is wrong. There is something wrong and I have cause this. So I remove the bearing and I look back in my parts bin at the bearing I had as a left over thinking I ordered too many of that style bearing. It was the same diameter as my current bearing but slightly thinner. A quick check of my photos that I had so intently taken provided the proof that the bearing installed was in fact not the bearing required. The wrong bearing, once the cases were torqued, was just thick enough to create a bind. The installed bearing had to go.

Gumption Traps are self inflicted.  We as humans with ego tend to direct our failure onto others or things that we believe are causing these failures. This was all mine. I had failed to properly approach the project with the detail necessary. I had failed to provide deadlines to keep the project on track. I had failed to utilize the tools like photos and the pen and paper to keep myself from installing the incorrect bearing. I had failed to take proper inventory and label my parts once I had received them. I had failed to keep a timeline that didn't include a shop space move thus causing my physical exploded view to be boxed up, changed, adjusted, hastily shifted from one space to another. I had failed the simple task of taking 2 minutes in a dry fit and save 2 weeks of an hour here and an hour there, split only by movies, gossip, beer and more self loathing as I pondered why the parts didn't fit... I had just simply failed to take reasonable, rational approaches to disassembly and reassembly. This is a manufactured object that logically went together, and logically will go back together if one were to just simply approach the project with preparation and documentation. Simple..or it could have been.

In retrospect, the Barbie Donkey was teaching me, albeit slowly, about the process of “the project”. It was teaching order. The order in which you start, work and finish. It was teaching patience in moments of frustration.

The motor was now spinning, it was installed. Connections had been made, wires attached, cables adjusted and a fuel tank had been installed. I had torqued bolts to the spec in the manuals. I had places new orings and gaskets in the correct places. There was an assembled motorcycle on the lift and I had made all of the parts that were strewn about my shop occupy a much smaller footprint called an assembled motorcycle. The battery was charged, the fuel was flowing. It was time.

Power, petcock, magic button. Cough, sputter, choke, bang, growl. The Barbie Donkey had fired and it was idling. I let it run for a little bit. I was proud. I was excited to get this project done. Never again. My shop space would be for general maintenance and not for assembling motors. I was not gifted in respect to motors and motor building. This wasn't my talent and I needed to realize this. Move on Gus. You won this round. Move on. As I listened to the motor run and walked around the bike, I was pleased with myself. Happy to see this beast running again. Happy that I was close to having this over.

“What's this weeping seam between the cylinder and head?”...

Next – Gumption Trap #4 – This isn't ending.