It’s been a week of fantastic weather here in Cornwall, which Harley and I have been happy to enjoy! The commute to and from work across Bodmin Moor has been an absolute pleasure.

Mind you the number of summer visitors, Emmetts in these parts, has been steadily growing making the return journey a tad tedious, do these people drive as badly at home????

Today I popped Harley back into Thor Motorcycles, near Bodmin.

When Colin and his crew gave her the post trip check last week they made some adjustments to the primary drive sprockets and chain. During this week I thought that I could detect a slight vibration from the area of the primary drive, so hence the visit to check it out. “What is he on about?” I hear the four cylinder bikers cry! “V twins always vibrate!” True words cos V twins do, but hey I’m a little fussy, she wasn’t vibrating right, if you know what I mean!

Colin was as fantastic as ever; as soon as we arrived Harley was whisked into the workshop and up onto a bike bench then Steve set to on her drive train. Becky made me a cup of tea as I settled to wait, what excellent service! Soon Colin invited me into the workshop to have a look at the work. He had found that the clutch hub had a small irregularity, it was running about seven one thousandths of an inch eccentric, yes imperial measurements, American engineers still use feet and inches, thank goodness! Now 7 thou, is about the distance a gnats bum cheeks flex when it passes wind, like not much at all…. After much debate and head scratching we could find no obvious sign of damage and concluded that the hub must have been slightly incorrectly machined when manufactured by H-D, unusual. As we did not have a new part to hand, this was Saturday afternoon as well, we decided to refit the hub and to replace it in the not too distant future when we have another exciting job planned! Whilst we had the drive case off, I got Colin to fit a new primary drive chain, the original has done 26000 miles and it seemed sensible whilst the case was apart. Watch this space for details about the next job we will be doing…..

Anyway, this is picture for you folks who like me have gotta know how things work.

To the left is the engine drive shaft and compensator sprocket. In the middle is the primary drive chain with it’s white adjuster. The large round object to the right is the clutch assembly, the hub is hidden inside this. To the top right is the starter motor shaft, whilst just visible to the extreme lower right can be glimpsed the final drive belt to the rear wheel. Beautiful, isn’t it?!

Anyway, Steve soon had her back together. Riding home she felt better, not quite perfect yet, but much better. So thanks Colin and crew, nice to know you look after us so well! See you soon for six times the fun!

Lids on, let’s ride!
Dookes