Munachar and Manachar

There's an old Irish story about Munachar and Manachar. Seem these two lads decided to go pick berries one day. As fast as Munachar was picking them Manachar was eating them.
Munachar got mad and decided to hang his buddy.
(I guess that's how my Irish Ancestors settled arguments :)
The only problem was every thing Munachar needed he had to do one more thing.
He needed a rod, to get the rod he needed an axe. To get the axe he needed a sharping stone. To use the stone he needed water to wet the stone etc, etc.

If you want to read it it's here and very short
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/short-stories/munachar-and-manachar.html

That's been my past few weeks.
I had to get the bearings, then get the old bearing off. To do that I had to get a bearing puller.
I don't have one.
So I decided to go to a local auto shop that restores old cars and motorcycles.
They had a 1941 BMW R71 they were restoring on the stand.
So I figured they would at least have an idea of what to do. Showed them the problem and they sent me over to a machine shop on the other side of town. The machine shop said they couldn't do it.
???
“Your a machine shop. You have machine and tools and stuff I don't have.”
“Yes but we don't have a machine for that and we don't know how to do it”
So much for the old American know how and can do attitude.

Went back over to the auto shop and they said they would try. So I left the drive shaft and parts with them. I also asked them to replace the U-joint in the drive shaft.

In the mean time I had forgotten to order a couple of seals. I had to order them form Gene at Holopaw Corvette in Florida. Gene is a great guy. You order the parts and he sends you an invoice with the parts. Takes about a week for the parts to get to northern Michigan though. If I screw up an order once that's another week of waiting.

The auto shop had sent the drive shaft over to another machine shop.
One that I assume had the tools to pull the bearing off. Problem is it took them almost 2 weeks to do it. I finally got the drive shaft back and they pulled the bearing, and replaced the U-joint.
But they did not set the new bearings in place or put anything back together.

So finally after 3 and a half weeks I have all the parts and start working on replacing the seals, bearings and installing new bolts in the final drive gear.
On the old bolts the heads were starting to round off.
They should also be upgraded to grade 10 bolts and not 8.8 grade.
Start to put everything back together and the new bolts holding the Final drive gear together are too big.
Once they were installed the final drive would not mate with the differential because the bolt heads are in the way. Plus they were grade 8.8 instead of 10 that I had asked for.
Fudge muffins!!
Remove the old bolts, go to the hardware store and get rounded hex head bolts.
(This may bite me in the future but I figured the old grade 8.8 bolts had 15,000 miles on them. So maybe It will be a while before I have to worry about it.)

Got everything back together. Dropping the Final drive gear into place without screwing up the roller bearings was a practice in Zen mediation and patience.
That one step took me an hour alone to do.
That took all of Friday evening.
Saturday I get up and start to put the final drive back on the bike.
Which is not easy holding a 20 pound final drive up with one hand and a grumpy arthritic elbow.

I get everything in place and and lined up, go to hook the side car drive shaft and....
It doesn't fit.



I sat there scratching my head for several minutes.
Go back and look at all my photos I took of the disassembly.
The side car shaft drive isn't matting with the final drive because a bearing is sticking out.
I didn't replace that bearing so where did it come from?
Somewhere over the past few weeks I took the replacement bearing and “placed” it on the end the splined gear hub to keep it from “getting lost”.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and great ideas like that one.

It wasn't hammered into place or anything but it some how became stuck there.
I didn't notice it when I was putting things back together and just figured it was supposed to be there.

Take the drive back of the bike, take it apart again, take a hammer and knock out the bearing and set the old one back in place.

Put the final drive back on the bike and the exhaust pipe is in the way. Remove the foot peg, lower the exhaust pipe, get everything back in place and bolted down.
Fill the final drive up with gear oil. Check for leaks and start the engine....

The battery is dead.

Put the charger on and went to bed.