Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

This is a bit of a metapost, it'll cover the bike problems we've had over the past few days. The normal story continues in blog posts by Tamara. Just keep in mind we had gone on a quick trip across the isthmus to talk to a boat captain. It's only about 30-40 miles, but I was horribly sick and we had some mishaps. Keep reading.

The real event was hitting a pothole on the transisthmian highway. It had a sharp lip and was effectively bottomless- I tried to avoid it, but there were too many.

The jar from the pothole was massive. I was pretty sure something was damaged, so I slowed down and inspected it. Yep, it flattened the rear tire. It didn't take too long to find the cause- the rim was dented inwards- about 3/4 inch on one side, maybe half that on the other. There's no way the tire would inflate, because the rim couldn't seat on that.

We were in the middle of the jungle. There was a fair amount of traffic coming by, but hardly anyone would stop. We decided the best thing to do would be to take the bike to a repair shop, so we tried to flag down any pickup truck that would stop for us.

That ended up being next to impossible- we waited for over an hour, in the pouring tropical rain. A car or two stopped, but we didn't know what good it would do to go with them- do we leave the bike? How do we find a truck in another location?

Finally a fellow in a large SUV with a trailer stopped. It was a tiny utility trailer, but we managed to drag the bike up onto it. That was quite difficult- we set one of the cases down as a ramp, then Tamara and our friend lifted the bike while I gave it some power. Once we got it into the trailer, we had to rotate it diagonally across the trailer, then lay it down, because the trailer was too short otherwise.

He took us about 20 miles to a tire repair shop. We passed quite a few, so I was confused why he kept going. Finally we got to the shop he wanted to stop at. I understood later, when he loaded a huge tractor tire into the trailer. Makes sense!

Anyhow, at the tire shop, we quickly pulled the cases, then put one underneath the bike so the rear tire was off the ground. We then pulled the axle and removed the rear tire. The guy at the tire shop set the rim on the ground, then grabbed his large, homemade, sledgehammer.

Now, I wouldn't normally beat on a cast rim with a sledgehammer. It just isn't a bright idea. However, what are the other options? Weld a fillet across the dent? Not really.

So, three of us held the rim down, and Mr. Tire Guy pounded the massive dents out of the rim. I was glad the ground was dirt/gravel, because it absorbed the hard hits that came through the rim.

After about 30 minutes, we were done, the tire was mounted, and we were ready to go. Our trailer friend wouldn't accept money, so we paid the tire guy his $2 (yes, two dollars), plus a $1 tip, then Tamara snuck a $20 on the dashboard of our friend's SUV.

We finished getting suited up, then hopped on the bike and were about to leave (we had forgotten to connect the chain, so it took an extra minute). In the meantime our SUV friend came back and wouldn't accept the money. I argued that it was for his family, but he wouldn't accept it. So, we gave him a handshake and gratitude and went on our way.

You can read the rest of the non-moto story in Tamara's blog. At this point we headed out to Colon to talk to the boat captain, then came back to Panama City (in the dark, with poor illumination, and a very sick Ted).

Things started to go downhill as we got into Panama. I couldn't tell what was happening, but I was glad to be close to the hotel. We pulled into the hotel and I tried to put the bike on the sidestand. Things seemed really weird. Finally I figured out why- the bike was sitting about 1.5 inches lower than it should, so the sidestand was levering the bike over! In other words, the sidestand was far too long for the bike, since it was squatting so much.

A quick inspection revealed a buggered suspension link. It had actually made the hole in the link into an oval, then finally a U shape as it pushed out the end. The other side wasn't as bad- which is odd, since they are paired and even one should hold the bike.

We put the bike on a scrap of wood (so the sidestand would work), then went to bed. There wasn't much we could do, it was late, and I was feeling worse from the 'adventure' that our 'quick errand' had turned into.

The following morning, Tamara took the bike to the local bike shop. They couldn't even remove the bolt through the suspension link- it had galled the threads and was a bit bent. So late in the day Tamara brought the bike back to the hotel. In the meantime she had met a guy who is doing the same trip as us. He needed some repairs done on his KLR, so he found a machine shop across town. That would be our next destination.

I wasn't feeling well, but since Tamara took the bike to the moto shop and really wasn't comfortable riding a broken bike very far, I took the pilot seat and she hopped onto the passenger seat. Even though the shop couldn't fix it, they were at least able to get it (temporarily) raised back up, so we weren't pretending to be a lowrider.

We finally found the machine shop on the far side of the international airport. It was about the size of a two-car garage, but twice as deep. They had a great selection of metalworking tools- several lathes, a couple of mills, and everything else that you'd hope for.

The first step was to remove the bolts and suspension links. That went okay, actually. That's the difference that the right tools can make. It was quickly apparent that the bearings were shot. The sledgehammer came out, but we had to drop the bike onto its side to make things easier.

The outer bearing race was stuck in the frame, so our new friend (Jaime) pulled out a Dremel type grinder and carefully cut through the race so he could get it out. Once he did, he gave it to us and said that we needed to find four replacement bearings. The shell would help us get the right size, as would the extra sleeve that I had sitting aside. It was nearly 5pm, so we'd probably be out of luck until the following morning.

We hailed a taxi, and Jaime explained where we needed to go. The taxi driver knew where to go, and he knew English too! It turns out his (step)grandfather was American, and our taxi driver also worked as a procurement agent for the local airline (which meant he spoke English in his job, while talking to American parts suppliers).

His knowledge of technical English came in handy when we got to the bearing store. He was able to explain what we needed, the application, and what the parts were to the supply guy. He pondered, found some alternatives, and finally gave us the four bearings and two sleeves (he only had two sleeves). Of course, we wanted to use our sleeves since they fit the bolt, but the bearings wouldn't fit our sleeves.

We took the bearings, hoping to figure out how to cobble it all together, then went to the hotel for the evening. The next morning our English-speaking taxi driver picked us up at the arranged time and took us to a second bearing store. They stocked a real selection of tools and goodies, so I stocked up on some corrosion protection stuff (to cover the bike while on the sailboat), a little tube of Loctite, and a second (and different) set of bearings to try.

On to the machine shop. We showed him our two bearing alternatives- but neither would work. The outer diameters were wrong- one was off by 2mm, and the other was SAE, not metric. We couldn't really tell since the bearing shell had been cut and would flex a bit. So we took the correct measurements and headed for a THIRD bearing store- which was the central branch of the first store.

I have to interrupt a little at this point. The taxi rides were about $20 each, which wasn't bad for almost an hour of his time. But Jaime told us to take the bus back to town, since it was cheap (25 cents) and the buses in front of the machine shop would turn and go exactly where we needed to go. We love these buses anyhow- I might post a single entry about them and the business model, but for now just know we used the buses. We stopped three different places, so we took four different buses, and it cost a total of $2.

Okay, back to the story. We took the bus back to the first bearing shop to return our incorrect bearings and get a refund, then we took another bus to go to the third bearing shop. It took a little bit to find it, but we almost had it right on our first try. We had two of the dimensions (ID and OD) but the third wasn't on our slip of paper. We made gestures and got the bearing shop to call the machine shop to get it figured out- after that it was easy.

Some quick food and back to the machine shop. Jaime knew the ID of the bearings was wrong for the sleeve that came with the DL650, so he used it as spec to create two new sleeves on the lathe. They were (and are) beautiful pieces of work.

Once that was done, Jaime removed the rest of the damaged bearings, installed the new ones, greased everything, then we put it back together. I suspect the lowest part of the suspension has been banged around a little, so nothing is quite straight- it took a little bit of jostling to make the new links fit. Not bad, though.

In the meantime I worked on putting Loc-Tite on an important subframe bolt that was coming loose, and helped Jaime do a little bit of work on the skid plate (it is so bashed and mangled that it was in the way). We replaced a bolt and used Loc-Tite, so hopefully the skidplate will survive the trip. I'll still have to remove it when I get home, it is far too damaged to leave on.

We were finally done. The cost was $150, plus I gave Jaime a tip for his work. That was basically two days of his time, plus the time of other workers, plus the equipment and such. It was a reasonable price for the amount of labor and such.

So, the bike is back together and mostly okay. I'm a little worried about other bearings on the bike, but it's nice to have a whole bike again. We rode it back to the hotel, after it spent the night in the machine shop. (From the bike's perspective, is a machine shop like a nursery, a doctor's office, detention, or a graveyard?)

Here's my description of the pictures that accompany the post.

The first photo shows the bike, tipped on its side, while several of us figure out how to remove the links and damaged bearings.

The second photo shows the destroyed bearings.

The third photo shows Jaime making the sleeves on his metal lathe. He wore the safety glasses while using the lathe, don't worry.

Finally, the fourth one shows all of the parts. From left to right: damaged suspension link (dogbone), replacement dogbones, replacement bearings, replacement sleeves, original sleeves and bolts, destroyed dogbone.