On the ride home from a job in Devon, my motorcycle’s clutch slips. This is annoying. I am busy and its MOT is soon due.
But “if you can’t change the situation, change your mind”, my friend Fletcher used to say, so I decide to be positive. It’s a chance to learn a new skill. I’ve written ‘clutch’ in a thousand car reviews without ever taking one apart.
Today, that changes.
A garage would want a couple of hours to do this. Owners’ forums say it is relatively simple, except for undoing one big nut, for which I’ll need an impact driver. I have one. So I give myself a day to do it.
First I need to remove the bash plate, which being aluminium is simple, and the exhaust, which containing 24-year-old iron is not.
I immediately shear two bolts and disintegrate a bracket around a crumbling intersection. Regardless of my mindset, this is definitely annoying.
The clutch cover is removed easily and I find what’s meant to be the hard bit: the nut.
This is ‘staked’: part of a flange around the nut is bashed into a notch on the shaft. It’s a crude and rudimentary method of preventing it working loose but, given it hasn’t budged in 75,000 miles, clearly works.
I’m told to prise out the stake with a screwdriver but can’t. I could chisel it off, I’m told, or grind it, but either may leave metal shards in the engine.
Simply, the impact driver may do the job, I read. But my battery-powered one isn’t up to it.
I once vowed that if I didn’t have the right tool for a job, I would either buy it or get a mechanic to do the work instead. The bike is already in pieces, so I go shopping. The day passes.
I like my new air impact driver, which arrives a day or two later. The thread on the bottom looks big, though, and my UK-spec air hose connectors won’t quite fit its American-spec threads.
I’m sure I or a nearby shop have something to convert one to the other. I don’t. The shops don’t. So I go online.
A few days pass. Then everything connects. Within three seconds the nut is undone. Per hour of operation, the air gun is currently costing £180,000.
