ATTEMPTING to FIX my Motorcycle in an Alaskan Parking Lot... 🇺🇸 | S1E29

My journey begins at North America's most northern drivable point. The plan is to ride through Canada and America before crossing over to Europe. From there, I'll make my way across Asia and down to Australia. New Zealand's southern most drivable point will mark the end of my journey. I'm calling it the big spiral and this is act three across North America. Didn't like that. What's going on with the clutch? I'm gonna fill up the bike and I'm gonna try to drive slowly to Fairbanks and see if I can make it on this clutch. It was only under full power that the clutch was slipping. That's why I think maybe I can make it to Fairbanks if I really baby it. If I'm really gentle, I might be able to make it. All right, so I've just finished riding the Dalton Highway and my clutch started to go out on the way back. I made it to Fairbanks and I just got my clutch parts in the mail so I need to find a place to install them myself in a parking lot somewhere. We'll see what happens. So yeah, I had a problem with my fork seals as well and I got those fixed by a local shop because the parts are relatively common. Yeah, so the parts are relatively common but there's a special tool required to put the seal into the fork so I felt like I had to take it to the shop. The thing is, it costs $700 which is about $1,000 Canadian. It's like Alaska prices up here. Labor is $150 an hour up here and it's just, I don't want to do that again with a clutch. It's just too much money. So I got to install it myself. There's no special tools required and basically all I need is a breaker bar and a 22 mil socket and I should have the rest of the tools myself. Now the trick is, is I need to find a place to do it. I don't have my own garage here. I don't have my own garage at all anywhere. So I'm going to go to the AutoZone and ask them, hey, can I do some work in your parking lot? It'll only take an hour or two and we'll see what they say. And really like, this is something I need to be able to do myself. Like this, this is a, you know, the bike has 8,000, oh, the bike has 8,000 K on it and the clutch is gone already. It's probably a little bit my fault because I've been pushing the bike to go up like really steep, gnarly stuff. The only thing I'm worried about is there's a big bolt in there, a 22 millimeter bolt that is quite high torque and I'm just worried I won't be able to break it free, but we'll see. All right, there's the AutoZone. A little bit windy today, which is not a great thing because I'll have my engine open and I don't want some blowing in there, but kind of just need to do this, so. All right, let's go inside and see what they say. Who's next? Hi, sir. Hey. What do we got today? So I'm, maybe a weird question. I'm just passing through town and I need to do a bit of work on my motorcycle. Okay. Do you allow people to work on their vehicles in the parking lot? I mean, you're totally fine. If you're not too bad of the way, we don't mind. We always just say, make sure you keep the area clean. Oh, sweet, that's really nice of them. Okay, so I need a 22 mil socket. Oh, they're all gone. Oh, here's one. This is an expensive one, though. Oh, I'm just going to get the expensive one. There's a breaker bar, $17, $18. This is a lot cheaper than paying someone. Okay, cool. Thank you. I'll be running back. All right, well, that's very nice of them and going to make my life a lot easier, assuming this goes well. All right, just go around to the back of the building here. By the dumpster, they say, and it should be good. I wonder if they have any cardboard. I have my box, but it would be nice to have a little extra cardboard. Okay, so for this job, it's going to be a little weird because I actually have to put the bike on its side and it just feels wrong to put a motorcycle on its side, but get myself a bit of cardboard. All right, so this is the part that I'm not going to like too much, but I'm going to put six gear if I can for when I break the bolt loose, but I'm going to put the bike on its side and the tank is quite empty right now, so it shouldn't leak. This feels so wrong. So the one thing I worry about a little bit is there's a gasket here and I want to reuse, yeah, I'm going to reuse the original gasket. So I need to be careful when I'm taking this cover off. So the gasket's basically the seal between this cover and the piece of metal behind it. Okay, it came off pretty easy. All right, there's the gasket. Keep that over there. All right, so now this is the part I'm worrying about because this is on here with 114 foot pounds. And so my plan is to hold down the brake while I yank on this. Here we go, I already need a bigger breaker bar. It's really on there. All right, when in doubt, buy a bigger wrench. This is not going so well. Why did it fall over? All right, so I'm going to try something that may or may not work. Let me explain. So basically the problem is when I try to loosen this bolt, the whole clutch is spinning, probably because it's somewhat worn. So what I might try to do is just replace these springs with the new ones I bought. And the new ones are hopefully stiffer and will hold the clutch tighter in there. I don't know if that's going to work or not, but I'm going to try at least. Okay, let's see if my idea worked. I have a feeling it didn't, but. So I actually, I think when I'm doing that, the bike is actually rolling forward. So I think if I just put that bike against the fence and just prevent it from rolling forward, I might be able to break it. Let's see. Maybe the building is a better idea. Ugh. Well, I don't think it's working. So I'm going to just try with these springs on and maybe it'll solve my problem, at least temporarily. I'll try one more time. I think it was maybe not in sixth gear, but we'll see. Oh! Oh, did it break free? Oh, it broke free. Oh my God. Finally. Oh, that was such a, that was a gong show. Holy crap. Okay. Oh, I'm quite happy about that. That was definitely a mission though, but basically point the bike into a wall, put it in sixth gear, hold the brake, and it'll come loose. Okay. Just wanted to compare these clutch plates. I don't know. They're definitely, they're definitely worn, but they're not as bad as I would have thought. Maybe that's why it wasn't totally slipping, but. Oh, that's a bunch of gunk in there. It's not a good thing. Oh yeah. That's quite bad. Okay. All right. So now I have to kind of reassemble the clutch pack and this could be a bit tricky because it's all about alignment, but well, I got this far, so I got to try. So this one is a friction plate and then the other one is just a metal plate like that. And you want to kind of align these. All right. So now that I've got my clutch plates kind of assembled, I can start to put it back in the bike, but this bit is actually a little bit tricky apparently. So we'll see how it goes. Oh, that wasn't so bad. All right. That was easier than expected. Now I just got to put the springs in and tighten the whole thing down. All right. So now that I've got it all kind of back together, I need to stand up the bike and then torque down that main bolt. Now, some of you are going to like this and I'm not even that happy about it either, but I don't want to buy a torque wrench just for this job. There's a perfect concrete block over there that I'm going to use to hold the bike in place. All right. I got it torqued down to my best estimate. Now it's just time to reassemble and hopefully it all works. All right. I've put it all back together. Let's just stand it up and see if the clutch works, actuates, and then if that's all good, then I'll try to take it for a ride and see what happens. Okay. And then I'm going to roll the bike, put the bike in gear, and then I'm going to roll it back. So now it does move. Clutch is working and then I'll pull the clutch in. Oh, and it rolls. Okay, good. Okay. So I'll just back it up a little bit and clean up and we'll go for a little test ride. All right. It's the moment of truth. I cleaned everything up and let's see if the clutch works. And it's going to be really gentle at first because it needs to, the oil needs to get to the clutch. All right. Neutral, first gear. Oh yes, it's working. Oh my God, it's working. Okay. And this is going to be really gentle. Okay. Second gear. Oh yes, it's working. I'm so happy. Oh my God. Oh, I can't believe I did that in the parking lot. I should've tried my fork seals too. Oh, I need a special tool for that, but. Oh yeah, it's working. I'm not going to do any hard pulls right now. I really just need to grease, get that oil on those plates. Cause it's, it's right now it's a dry clutch and it's supposed to be a wet clutch. And basically that means the clutch is in, bathed in oil. All right. Well, I'm really happy that AutoZone let me do that in their lot. Cause yeah, otherwise, like it's really handy to be able to do it in like a, in a lot of a parts store because, because if you need anything, you just go inside and you just, you basically have everything you need there. Well, mostly everything. So yeah, really handy. So I, I can't carry these tools with me. They're just way too big. So I'm going to see if the employees would like to have them. I mean, it would be great to work on my car. Because yeah, I can't carry these. Like these breaker bars are way too big for me to carry. I'm more than glad to take these off because I actually need some. Is that everything then? Oh, there should be a socket here too. Oh, there's a socket. Yeah. I'm more than gladly to take these off your hands for sure. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. No messes back there. I should be worried about anything. No, it's all cleaned up. All cleaned up? Yeah. Thank you so much. You have a wonderful day. Yeah, you too. Thanks. All right. Well, he just came out as soon as he saw me and he's like, hey, is everything okay? And I'm like, yep. And like, you want some tools? And he's like, yes, I need some breaker bars. So yeah. Yeah. Cause those things were just, you know, I have to travel as light as I can and just having a big breaker bar is just not, not going to work. But yeah, I'm glad they're going to a good place. Cause I wouldn't want to just, you know, tools are meant to be used for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, you know, and it would be a real shame if they just got used once and then tossed. So yeah. All right. Well, I think I'm going to end this video here. The bike seems to be working well. I'm not going to do a full acceleration yet because I just want to make sure the clutch plates are actually oiled up before I push him really hard. But yeah, I was seriously considering like, oh, I'm going to give up. Cause I really had to torque that, that not so hard. And it just wasn't, wasn't coming loose. Cause the bike was kind of propelling itself forward even as I was holding the brake. And then I realized, well, if I just point it into a wall, well then it has nowhere to go. And the bolt should come loose. So I think, I think that's what did it. That was definitely the thing I was worried about, getting that loose while I was, you know, just a guy in the parking lot. But yeah, in the end I did manage to get it loose. And I think I got a pretty tight on after as well. So it should, it should stay there pretty good. But anyways, thank you for watching this video. If you'd like to subscribe, there is a button down below. I'd really appreciate it if you did, if you, if this kind of content interests you. I hope to see you in the next video. Now that I'm not stuck in Fairbanks, well, I'm going to keep moving on and I'm going to head out to the next adventure. So anyways, thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.