It seems like it’s bad luck to do anything to the bike before heading to Baja. Last time it was broken spoke that caused the trip to be postponed. Well, tomorrow I’m heading to Baja to watch SCORE Baja 1000 race. After last Baja trip my forks felt softer than usual, so today I decided to change the fluid. Bad idea. After struggling to secure the bike so I can actually pull the forks off (it doesn’t have the center stand), I managed to make secure loop hanging from the ceiling. The forks were off, the oil change went successful and I was simply putting everything back together. Being professional mechanic I am most of the time I simply tighten the bolts by the feel instead of using torque wrench. For unknown reason this time I pulled the manual out, looked at all the torque specs and set the torque wrench. As I was tightening axle pinch bolts (10nm) I kept thinking that it seems to require a lot of force for just 20nm. Hey, I got torque wrench, no chance I will overtigten them. SNAP. Fuck. Here I was, witting on the floor next to the bike and staring at the broken bolt. I was about to hang myself on that secure loop that I made earlier. The bolt broke in the middle, and the other half was buried in the fork leg. Great, I’m going to miss Baja 1000.

This is when I remembered that I have bolt extractor kit that Sideout had bought earlier when he broke off the mirror on his Dakar. My sorry ass may be saved. After a bit of fiddling and a lot of cursing I was able to drill the hole in the broken bolt and it came right out. Screw you, Mr Murphy, I’m going to Baja no matter what you think!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Riding, Life, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.