Downtime

Into every life a little rain must fall. In mine the slow drizzle rarely abates, every silver lining is tarnished by its precipitating host. This is my cross to bear and I’ll not bore you further with this crass burden.

For the T3 the weather changed sometime around March 2020 on my way to work. The clutch suddenly and unexpectedly gained a shed load of free play in the cable. I adjusted it out and limped into and back from the office but all was definitely not well.

I raised her up on the alter and began a slow autopsy interrupted by the distractions of other projects and the viral disruption.

Faithful followers may recall that to get to the gearbox on a Tonti framed Guzzi the frame has to be lifted off the engine. Working on my own I managed this by strapping the bike to the roof and dropping the lift. So pleased was I by this success that I left it like this for a couple of months.

This is what I eventually discovered, one of the clutch plates had abandoned the concept of being riveted and had adopted a more free association approach to power transmission.

I was concerned about European supply chain issues following the massive foot shooting madness and was keen to test out the available options so splashed the cash on a Ram single plate clutch and lightened flywheel from Germany.

Did I fit it in short order and return to automotive bliss? No. I did what any reasonable human trying to keep there shit together in the face of a quantum shift in reality, I bought more stuff and distracted myself.