So, after the disappointment of yesterday, I had come up with a couple of possible fixes. First, I called a couple of parts houses to see if anyone had another shaft. No dice, they have to be shipped from Austria and that's a minimum of 5 weeks. Nope, I aint waiting that long. Time to use my chimp brain and figure a better fix out. After ordering another shaft (in case my chimp brain let me down), I talked to a buddy with more experience than me and decided that worst case scenario, I could remove the damaged shaft, fill the scratches with some JB Weld and then sand them smooth. That would be a pain, but doable.
So I went to my local hardware store and got some wet/dry sand paper in various grits from 400 grit up to 2500 grit. That should be smooth enough to do the job. It won't be perfect, but it will be better than the alternative. I also got a couple of polishing bits for my rotary tool to really put a shine on it.
Then I had a flash of chimp like brilliance. I still had that old shift shaft with the broken shifter fixing bolt in it. If I could remove it, that would solve all my problems. I dug it out when I got home and sure enough, it was in good shape. Thinking it through, I decided I would need a new bench vise, since I had destroyed my old one a couple of years ago. So off to Harbor Freight I went and got a new 4 inch vise. Don't be a hater now, not everyone has Snap On money...
Once home I installed the new vise on my bench and then came up with a chimp-tastic way to hold the shaft without damaging it...Yeah, those are old dish sponges. The worn green pads are grippy without having enough grit left to scratch the shaft, while the sponges compress it in the vise.
First, using a fresh bit, I drill a small pilot hole, maybe five millimeters deep. Then I used a slightly larger reverse drill bit to try to break it free. No dice. It was tight. No biggie. Then I heated the shaft up with a torch to break any thread locking compound free and put in an appropriate sized screw extractor in my drill and crossed my fingers....... Success!
So nice....
Well, well, well, so I am up and running again. After cleaning up my mess and putting the shaft in a safe place, I went back to the bike and re-re-removed the fron exhaust header and the rear brake pedal so I could access the right side engine cover to replace the bad shaft. Of course that means that I also need to drain the coolant from the bike. I know, it doesn't seem fair, but this is, in all honesty, my fault, so it is sort of penance for being dumb in the first place. Then it was time to drop that coolant. First from the radiator...
...and then from the water pump...
Then I put the saved coolant next to my saved oil and called it a day before I screwed something else up...Tomorrow, onto the shaft replacement. Don't screw up dude...
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