I haven’t written about the TW in a while because I broke it in a fairly serious way, and I’ve spent the last few months slowly piecing it together. After I received my parts back from the machine shop, I would work on my bike at night, after work, whenever I had time. I work a fairly physical job where I work fairly long hours picking up and moving heavy items and equipment. I placed the clutch cable holder on the wrong spot, and tried torquing it down. This caused it to crack one side of my engine case. Luckily for me, I had ordered an engine bottom a while back, because I was going to rebuild it, and basically have it ready as a hot swappable engine, when the TW, which I ride fairly hard, had the engine fail.
So the last few months, I’ve been slowly, methodically, and strictly on days I have off where I can be well rested, worked on the bike. Carefully checking, double checking, and triple checking my work before preceding. I’ve had the engine assembled, and mounted on the bike for about a month now, and the main hold up was due to some broken wires, and an improperly installed clutch.
The wiring issue was due to the fact that that the leftside engine cover holds the alternator’s stator coil, and a pickup coil for firing the spark plug at the correct time. Whenever I took the cover off, I lazily just let it hang by the wires. Those wires eventually broke off, and the bike wasn’t firing when I needed it to. So I ordered a new stator and pickup coil.
The clutch installation was incorrect because, while I have a Cyclepedia manual, I was not fully understanding what I was doing. I installed the clutch the first time, and after installing the new electrical parts, fired the bike up, and tried moving it. The bike didn’t move at all, and I realized instantly that I needed to take the rightside cover, where the clutch basket is, off again, and adjust it properly. I finally accomplished that today, and the TW is finally up, running, and moving.
This “““““new”””” engine bottom (I have no clue how many miles are on it), has a shifting issue, and I think the reason it was on eBay for the cheap is because the gearshift mechanism needs some replacement, which means I’m going to have to take the rightside cover off AGAIN. The issue is annoying, but I can still ride the bike, and shift.
I learned a lot of lessons while going through this whole ordeal:
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The whole reason I got into this mess was because I used cheap gaskets, which caused an oil leak. Use only OEM gaskets and seals.
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Do not work on mechanical stuff, especially aluminum parts, while you’re tired. I have a number of bolts, nuts, and other parts broken because I worked on it while I was tired, after work. No longer am I going to do anything more complicated than say, change engine oil, clean chains, or other minor maintenance when I’m tired.
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Don’t overthink the manual. The clutch issue only happened because I wasn’t thinking about it correctly. The manual knows all. Make sure you have a good manual.
This has been an ordeal.