Post mortem

A quick tear down and it looks as though it was a stuck piston on the right side caliper, played hell getting two out.

Mea culpa, I should have rebuilt the calipers even though they were low mile take-offs. 

New rotors, new pads, and caliper rebuild kits all ordered from good ol' eBay for a rebuild session this next weekend. I'll have to put on some shakedown miles next week to make sure it's ready to go out to Nashville in two weeks.



I have also started the project to apply tank badges. I say project because I already have an hour invested in trying to get them exactly perfect side to side, front to back, along with flattening them as they were meant to go on a 2016 model with the bigger tank that is more round. Measure 15 times, apply once....




Quick Update 5:05pm:
Ordered the new rotors on Saturday, thanks eBay seller for letting me know TODAY that you don't have them in stock and won't until the 11th!    Really?!?!?  I even called the manufacturer and they don't have them, that doesn't change the fact that eBay had them listed for sale and they knew they didn't have them. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Fire!

Decided to take some time and have lunch with a friend today plus put some miles on and that's where something went wrong.

Cruising down the highway the bike started losing power, weird. Then I had to downshift, something is wrong.

I go to grab the front brake and haul it off the road and I'm greeted with a rock solid brake lever, that's not good.

A precursory look around the front and I can see the rotors are glowing. Crap.

I manage to get it hauled down after signaling my buddy and hop off just in time to see small flames licking at the calipers. I let it cool down a few minutes before trying my frontier medicine on the bike and then crack the bleeders to release the pressure to see what happens, the lever goes back to normal. WTF? Well, what the hell, let's go! I never had another problem the rest of the day short of the diminished braking capability from the front. Not sure what happened but I'll be delving into it tomorrow.

Of course mail order parts always get you eventually.

Ordered parts from Amazon, pair of extended shift levers to make better use of the banana boards, and washers to finish the rear brake install, parts were to come in Thursday but the mail was late, walked out Friday morning and they were there. Great I can finish, not so great, the washers were non-existent. Boo. I did find two used ones that weren't bad so I threw those on, bled the brakes real quick, uploaded a new tune on the PCIII, and headed off to Harley to pick up the two random clips I ordered.

Another day....

Back in the garage again yesterday, trying to get all the little things taken care of while I wait for the last round of small parts to come in.

Tighten rear axle, check. Tighten front axle, check. Tighten shocks and hook up air lines, check.

Bleed rear brakes, damn, waiting on sealing washers. Really, that's all I need to ride? Oh well, I'll at least fire it up and burn in the new pipes. And it sounded way to good not to take it around the block, who needs rear brakes anyway? Still waiting on the new extended shift levers but the old one is just laying there to install. So sans rear brakes, side covers, and bags, off I went.

Oh what a joy to ride again and it broke on the 21st of last month, not too bad on down time plus the weather cleared up for the weekend so with the last batch of small parts I should be back in the saddle to get some shakedown miles on.



Does seem slightly weird without the bag and engine guards, not sure if I like it or not?

Killed three hours yesterday chasing what may as well be an obsolete part, the stupid exhaust clamp that mounts to the transmission mount, a $10 part and only one out of three dealers had it in stock. SMH

What was a surprise is they had one of the two 2016 tank medallions I wanted to order, woohoo! It's the small victories.......



With the freshly purchased exhaust clamp I was able to get the exhaust fully installed along with the new Cyclesmith banana boards that I hope will be as comfortable as they look although they really make the rear boards look hideous. May have to contemplate switching to pegs like the Street Glide....

I Take Stuff Apart

I have O.C.D. and A.D.D. which means everything must be perfect, but not for long. I spend most of my time taking things apart and cleaning them just for the satisfaction for knowing it is done "right". That can also mean once everything is "right", I lose interest, everything is not right with the Road King.

This leads to the latest episode in my Harley project, replacing a snapped drive belt.

Luckily it snapped in the garage after deciding to ride down to the new Adam Smith Mega-Harley store but it killed the day and sent me on a spiral of collecting parts to do work "while I'm there".
No, I can't just pull the inner primary and replace said belt, at a minimum the seals would need replaced. And if I'm going to pull the swingarm(which has 60K) I  may as well replace the bushings and bearings, you know that rear tire only has a couple thousand miles left.....and down the rabbit hole we go! New rear tire= new to me wheels and new tires front and rear and while I'm at it let's do a 170/60/17 in the rear because I didn't just do a new paint job last year and I should buy a new fender to accommodate said fat tire.

 

The reason I went to a fat tire? It's the best deal I could find on a pair of chrome factory wheels, seems like a good reason to incur more work, right?