Spring has nudged its way to the Nati in the last couple of weeks. I manage to get to the driving range with my new golf clubs. I also managed to wind my motorcycle mechanic odyssey to an end. I kicked off my attempts at growing things.

I’ll start off with the motorcycle. My motorcycle clutch started slipping last fall. The bike had to sit though most of the winter without attention. I ordered the friction discs and clutch plates over the winter and waited for the spring thaw. After facing several set backs, I stripped the screws holding in the bike’s oil pump. After several failed methods of getting the screws out, I finally found a solution. The Black and Decker tools to removed stripped screws are utter crap. Do not buy those. While attempting to use one of them the bit broke off in the drilled out stripped screw. There was a lot of cursing after that. The Alden Prograbit was awesome! They took those screws out in about 5 minutes.

Once that problem was solved, I set about tearing the clutch apart to replace the friction discs. After taking several parts off, I get to the lock nut. Note that the Honda Clymer manual says something deceptively easy like, remove the lock nut. After pawing at the nut for a while, I decided to consult the internet gods. The gods tell me that the lock nut is “staked” and will require a dremel tool to grind it out. The lock nut will also require a special lock nut tool from Honda for removal.

That’s it. I give up. I called the Honda Motor Sports. They are going to come get the bike this week. There a moments where you just have to raise the white flag of defeat and call a professional.

My quest to grow things has been more successful. I built a grow light stand to get my seedlings started early. That project went very smoothly. I planted all my seeds. I’ll post again when the first seedlings turn up.