After a hiatus, I took advantage of the dry weather and some time to crack on a bit further with tearing down the LTD.
I’d got as far as removing the exhaust, but couldn’t actually release it from the bike due to a stuck fastener that I didn’t want to deal with in-situ, and the way the bike was supported.
Haynes manual in hand, off came the ignition coils, and the pulley cover. Progress came to a screeching halt when I realised I didn’t have a big enough (27mm) spanner to get the rear wheel undone. Cue a run to Halfords for a big-ass spanner. With the right tool, that came free pretty easily, but I couldn’t get enough play in the pulley belt to free it from the pulley at the engine after I’d removed the cover. I should have read the Haynes manual better as it turns out I should have removed the pulley retainer and the pulley itself (pulley starts to look really wrong when you’ve typed it a few times). As I didn’t trouble to do that, I remove the rear wheel first. All so far, so good with a distinct lack of the usual snowballing problems that I get.
Once the rear wheel was off, and I’d disconnected everything I could find (clutch, etc) from the engine, it was time to take a deep breath and start loosening engine mounts. Again, the quality of the photos in the Haynes manual (black and white, grainy) and descriptions weren’t very clear to me and after removing the 3 main mounts I still couldn’t figure out how to free the engine. I could see it was moving, but it couldn’t clear the frame. The manual made it sound so easy!
After some more wrestling and pondering, it became apparent that all the mounts on the right-hand side had extra flanges or similar that needed to be removed to create a clear path for the engine to come out. A couple of them gave me some concern due to stickiness but they all came off with relatively good grace and…out came the engine onto the carefully positioned footstool. Woo hoo!
This was the point where I regretted forgetting to drain the oil from the engine before I started all this. D’oh! Not because it started pouring oil everywhere (thankfully), but because it must add 5+ kg to the weight. Being the stubborn ass that I am, I wrapped the engine in an old curtain to avoid it messing me or the house too much and hoisted it up for a cross between lifting a McGlashen stone and a Hasafell stone carry. I managed to get it through the house and outside in one run, then down to the shed in 2 more runs. It’s quite heavy!
I’m left with basically the frame, rear mudgard, handlebars and switchgear, loom and all the other “fiddly bits” to shift, and don’t think I’ll try to tackle moving that alone (likely to bash up the house on the way through, apart from anything!). After that, I’ll have room on the drive to receive the V-Max!
