Making Mistakes Changing my Clutch in Remote Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 | S1E88

I did it again. My journey began at North America's most northern drivable point. After riding through Canada and America, I've crossed 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 four, a lap of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Well, I find myself in a shed in the Hebridean countryside, and that's because I got my clutch plates in. So the owners of this Airbnb were kind enough to allow me to do this work in their shed. And yeah, so the first thing I wanna do is drain the oil, cause I'm gonna do an oil change at the same time. And then, yeah, we'll start working on the clutch plates. I think it should go a little better this time than the last time. The last time was in Alaska, in Fairbanks, and I think I know what to do now. Whereas that time, I didn't know exactly what to do, so. So the first thing I need to do is take off the skid plate. There is a hole for oil in it, but I feel like I'm gonna make a mess if I don't take this off. Just four bolts. The chickens just showed up. And a dog. I'm not sure if the chickens are allowed in here. Are the chickens allowed in here? Yes, they're in and out. Okay, yeah, I was like, just make, I don't wanna allow them in if they're not allowed. No, that's fine, they're just in and out. Okay. You can't keep the pendant anyway. Okay. I think it's a longstanding tradition in the UK that stuff gets done in sheds. And yeah, now I get to be part of that tradition a little bit, I think. All right, so while it's draining, let's put a new filter in. So now I just need to take off the clutch cover and then we'll start working on breaking that big bolt or the big nut, I guess I should say, the big nut that holds the clutch in place. All right, let's see how this goes. Now, before we get too serious here, I just wanna make sure that I've got the right part and make sure it all lines up properly. It does seem to look correct, so I think we're good to go. All right, so the next bit is, oh, hi chicken. How's it going there? Oh, you just pooped. Don't poop. You shouldn't poop in the garage. I was gonna line my bike right where he took a dump or she took a dump. But anyways, yeah, so the next bit is the big bolt, the 22 millimeter bolt. When I was in Alaska, I tried to do it up as much as I could. I think it's designed so that when you ride the bike, it only tightens and not loosens, which would make sense. So it might be on even tighter than I torqued it in Fairbanks. So we'll see what happens. But I do have a plan. Well, I know how to do it, but I do have kind of a plan that I might try here. But first we'll try it without any tricks. The first thing I'll do is put in sixth gear. All right, maybe I'll try the stand method that I used last time, but no wall. So last time I rolled it into a wall. Let's see here. How did I do this last time? All right, I just watched the video back and I think the back wheel is slipping. So I have a bit of a plan for that actually. So I've always carried this ratchet strap with me and it's come in handy a few times for various reasons, but this time I'm gonna use it to tie the rear wheel to the swing arm so it can't turn. That might be the solution here, but I imagine a lot of you are not gonna like this. All right, got it on there pretty tight now. We'll see how this works. I've never tried this actually. So I'm optimistic though. Did it again. Oh, I broke it. I did it. And the chickens know what's up too, they've come to see. I can't believe I broke it free, but actually I think that method works pretty well. I didn't even have to stand on the brake and the bar. I just used my body weight and I held the front brake as well, but yeah, it worked. And for those of you that are wondering about the spokes in the rear wheel, well, it's not really actually pulling on the spoke. It's just pulling on kind of the raised portion of the wheel right now. So I think it's just fine. Hello, please no pooping, okay? Maybe I'll put the bike on its side. All right, now for the, well, it's supposed to be the hard part, but last time it went quite well. So we'll just take all these springs out and then the old clutch plates, and then we'll put the new ones in. There we go. Oh, so I'm kind of curious to see what these clutch plates look like. It's in there, there we go. All right, yeah, the outside of this one is quite worn. The inside is not too bad. Well, it's worn, but they're not as bad as they were last time. How's it going, little lady? How are you? That's not food. It's definitely not food. That's also poo. Don't eat your own poo. No, it's not good. Gross. All right, it's time to assemble the new clutch here. And I have to do them in the same order that I did it, that they came out. So it looks like these plates are already greased, oiled up, at least the metal ones. So last time I did this, this was supposed to be the tricky part, but it actually went pretty smoothly. We'll see how this goes. It's not going so smoothly this time. This top one gets offset. Oh, there we go. Okay, good. So this time, I don't know what kind of springs I had last time, but this is a heavy-duty clutch spring set, so it may help with the clutch. 15% stronger than the original parts. The clutch plates are actually apparently racing clutch plates. I didn't really pick any of this specifically, but it's just that they were in stock, so that's what I got. The strap is still on the wheels, so this should work. This is making it nice and tight. If you're wondering what this is, I put a second clutch cable in. This is a backup, so if one of them breaks, I'll easily be able to put a new one on. It's already just sitting there waiting. Oh, yes, I forgot to put this thrust bearing. In a car, it would be called a thrust bearing. I'm not sure what it's called in a motorbike, but I thought it was going on a little too easy. Yeah, I forgot to put this on. Basically, it pushes the, it's kind of the thing that pushes the clutch. And that goes right there. All right, so if I squeeze the lever, the clutch is actuating now. So now for a bit of oil and put the skid plate back on and take it for a test ride, I think. Now, the bottles in the UK are so nice because they have these little nozzles on them. You don't need a funnel to fill your bike up, which I find so convenient. Guess you gotta squeeze it in there, though. The capacity of this bike is quite annoying because it's like 1.2 liters. And of course, you can only buy these in one liter increments. So I always end up with a lot of extra oil after that I can't really use and I don't want to carry with me. So I always end up overfilling a little bit, which is not a big deal, but I'm like, I just want a little extra oil in there just because I have it. You can see how much I put in. There's little markings on the side of the bottle. So I've put in, oh, the chickens are back. How's it going, ladies? Having a nice day? Can I pet you? Nope. So cute. Just no pooping, okay? All right, so I'm just going to check the level. There's actually like a little window here. Yeah, I think it's up to the full mark now. Maybe a little more, which is, I'm fine with that. And of course I've got to take off the ratchet strap because otherwise the bike's not going anywhere. All back together now. I'm just going to start it and make sure. All right, neutral, put in gear, clutch out. Oh, it's moving. It's moving. It's a good sign. I'm just going to ride really gentle because I didn't oil the friction plates. And well, I didn't last time either and it was fine. This time, the kind of the metal plates came oiled already. So I think, I think they kind of expect people not to soak the plates, but yeah, just be gentle. Hey, it worked out fine last time. So such a nice day today. I just ride gently to start. Maybe, maybe I won't do anything hard today, but I'm off tomorrow again. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going, but I'll be going around the island. And I think I'll probably head off back to the mainland. I'll be, I want to hit the sky actually. Quite a famous area. Oh, I don't have any hearing protection in right now. It's quite loud. I should have put my earbuds in. But yeah, I think the bike's working. The clutch is actuating a different spot. I kind of adjusted it when I put, after I put the new plates in. So I have to get used to that, but that's to be expected, I think. Look at this beach. Not something you'd quite expect at the UK, these giant beaches. Gorgeous. Oh, big tractor coming. Maybe we'll turn around here. Back. Yeah, it seems to be working. The stiffer springs should make the clutch lever a bit stiffer, but I'm not really noticing that much difference, to be honest. So I may have had stiffer springs last time. Yeah, last time I ordered a Barnett clutch kit. This time it's, I forget what it was, but a different brand. And yeah, they may just use stiffer springs by default. I don't know. Oh, I just noticed, that's one of those old block houses. Remember in the last video, I visited one of those and that's an actual real one there. The two of them actually. Very cool. Ah yes, and we're back. But I think that was successful. The clutch seems to be working. And I'll just park the bike. They've actually been, they offered to let me park the bike in one of their sheds. There's my laundry actually. Oh, there's the chickens too. They've been allowing me to park in here, which is really nice of them. And while we're in here, I just wanted to show you something, which I thought is, remember in Ireland, I was talking about like the smell of like burning peat in there, because the peat is basically, basically this, all this grass, like years and years of grass growing on top of itself. And it gets like, I don't know, 10 feet deep or something like that. And they actually dig it up and dry it out and use it to heat their homes. Well, they've actually got a massive pile of it here. And it just looks like dirt, but it's actually like organic material. And it's just, you know, compressed grass. And he was telling me that the deeper it is, the better it is, because it's the deeper it is, the more dense it is, cause it's got so much weight on it. And because it's more dense, it'll actually burn better. So I think he showed me like, you can actually tell by the weight of it, like it's actually heavier when it's good quality peat. And then you can also kind of see, I'm not an expert, but this one looks more dense. This one looks a little less dense. But yeah, they've got a whole pile of it here and they use it to heat their home. In the past, hello. In the past, they would use it to heat water. And you could buy these hot water boilers and use it to heat your water. But apparently it isn't legal anymore because burning peat isn't exactly the most environmentally friendly. There's cleaner methods, but I think a lot of people still love the smell and it's really kind of a tradition around here and nostalgic. A lot of, he was saying a lot of older people are just like, they just love the smell of burning peat cause it's, you know, they grew up with it their whole lives and it is a very unique smell. So anyways, I thought that was interesting and yeah, half the shed is just filled with it. And yeah, it's just really cool. Cause obviously, you know, in North America we'd be burning wood, but obviously they had no trees here. Like the owner was saying that the trees were either cut down for firewood long ago or they would have massive forest fires here as well. And that kind of erased all the trees as well. And I was quite surprised by that. Cause I was like, does it actually get dry enough here to have a forest fire? But yeah, apparently a lot of it burnt away. So that's why, especially the Hebrides, but Scotland as well, that's why it looks like a big open field because all the trees disappeared a long, long time ago. And that's why you have this deep layers of peat now because there's no trees on top of it and it's just layers of grass. So, but anyways, the bike is doing well and I think we can continue the trip like this. So, but anyways, I'll see you in the pod in one second. Well, it seems like the clutch is working great. It should go for some time now. Now the clutch I just replaced lasted a lot longer than the previous one. So I replaced the stock one that came with the bike at around 8,000 kilometers. And now I've just replaced that one at 27,000 kilometers. So it lasted almost, well, 19,000 kilometers essentially, almost 20,000 kilometers, which I think is not too bad. I definitely was using it fairly aggressively in certain situations in the desert, for example, in Utah and things. And it lasted a whole continent essentially. So I replaced it at Fairbanks, drove all the way across North America and then rode around the UK and then up to Scotland in the Hebrides here. So not too bad, I'd say. I'm kind of curious to see how long this next one will last. But yeah, I've just got to thank Katie and her husband. They really just kind of let me work on my bike in their shed or it's almost, I'd say it's more of a barn if anything, but yeah, they let me work in their shed and I really appreciate that cause I was just kind of like, okay, can I do this? And yeah, sure. So yeah, and I got to do laundry and stuff. And so I just want to promote them a little bit because yeah, this pod's been amazing. And then the house next door, they also rent out. So if you're ever on the Hebrides and are looking for a place to stay, this is a great place to go. And if you do come, make sure you tell them Eric sent you. But anyways, yeah, thanks for watching the video. I think tomorrow I'm going to be doing some more ferry island hopping stuff around the Hebrides here. And then I may end up across back towards the mainland on the Isle of Skye, which is supposed to be amazing. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and maybe you hit the like button. And yeah, hopefully I'll see you in the next video. Okay, bye.