Dagnamit! ???

So yeah, you know how you sometimes have this great idea and you think something will be really easy? Well, I had one of those this weekend.

Despite the exhaust on my bike being stainless steel, over the years they’ve become pitted and, well, stained - bit of a paradox, I know.

So I thought I’d whip them off and polish them up - in my defence I did attempt to polish them on the bike but access wasn’t great. Removing the exhaust didn’t look that complicated, it looked pretty straight forward even.

Except nothing is straight forward, ever!

Unbolted the rear clamp, simples! Removed the hanger support bracket, easy. Unplugged the lambda sensors, a cinch. Unbolted the headers from the cylinder heads, 1 yep, 2 ok, 3 done, 4 broke the manifold stud, bugger!

Then starts a whole day of work just trying to get the broken stud out of the cylinder head. Stud extractors didn’t work! Easy-outs didn’t work - even broke one inside the stud trying to take it out! Bugger and blast!

After what seemed like several hours of drilling with the worlds most bendy and useless drill bits I managed to drill through the stud and the broken easy-out. By sheer miracle I even managed to drill directly through the centre and avoid damaging the head!

Retapped the threads, made a new stud and finally put the bike back together again! Phew! ?

Just to make sure I took it out for a good spin afterwards.

Two common sayings come to mind; all’s well that ends well, but most importantly, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

The exhausts can stay cruddy next time!