Jul 16 ok, I give up

Yes, a DNF. 

There are many euphemisms -- I fought the good fight, tried/gave it my best, discretion is the better part of valour -- to name a few.  They all amount to the same thing ... I gave up.  

My plan was to pick up Jim's trailer early, check out the wheel bearings and take the 4-wheeler to Parry Sound.  Well, I got the bike to PS but not with Jim's trailer.

The 4-wheeler fired right up ... why am I taking this in for service ?  and I used it to haul Jim's trailer back to our place.  Well, I found out why I'm taking it in for service as it stalled in our driveway.  I managed to get the trailer into place so that I could check the bearings.

Up with the right-hand side.  Roll that wheel.  Rumble rumble.  Oooh.  Off with the wheel/hub and look at all the rust in here.  Yucch.   The bearings themselves, or at least the outboard ones, looked ok but there was a lot of crap mixed in with the grease.  It took forever to get the inner bearing out as I had a hard time removing the inner seal which is a combination of metal and rubber.

I finally got the inner seal out along with the bearing and in the process the bearing cartridge came apart.  I thought that I'd lost one of the cylindrical roller bearings but found it in the cleaning rag.  I cleaned things up as much as possible, put it all back together and re-installed the wheel.  It still rumbles.  The bearings really need replacing, not repacking.

That took more than two hours.  Yes, time was going by. 

Up with the left-hand side.  Roll that wheel.  Silence.  That's the way that it should be.  I popped off the wheel/hub, regreased both bearings without bothering to remove the inner seal, since it was in good shape and reinstalled the wheel.  That didn't take very long.

I had a sandwich.

Now, get the car hooked up and the 4-wheeler onto the trailer.  That was easy.  Let's check the lights.  No lights.  Rats.  I suppose that I could have gone ahead without lights but I figure that I've got three trips to Parry Sound -- take 4-wheeler in; take 3-wheeler in, pick up 4-wheeler; pick up 3-wheeler -- and I'd rather have lights.  There's also the nagging thought about that bearing which would accumulate 350+ highway miles in that process.

So ... start work on the lights.  They'd been patched before so I had to undo all the patches; check all the connections.  The ground wasn't working; I fixed that and tested that the ground was making its way to the light.  Yup.  That's good now. 

Still no lights.  Ok, remove all these patches and replace the connector and a goodly length of wire.  Still no luck.  Still no lights. 

I also realized in this process that the lenses for the lights were not secured very well and wouldn't likely last much bouncing down the road.  That was basically the final straw.

It was now getting on 2:00 pm and I was thinking that the bike wasn't going to Parry Sound that day.  That's when I gave up; DNF'd.  I moved Jim's trailer to the side, moved the Whaler trailer out of the barn, juggled the other trailers around, moved the box trailer out of the  barn, loaded the 4-wheeler into the box trailer, hooked it up to the car, checked the lights (they worked, thank goodness !), and got cleaned up to head to Parry Sound.  At first I'd thought that I was only going to load up, leave the trip for another day, but then decided to go and at least get that accomplished.

It was an easy trip to Parry Sound, even easier because the place is north of PS.  The 4-wheeler cooperated and started up so that I could get it out of the trailer and into their shop.  He said that it would be ready sometime next week.  I'm going to get new tires at the same time -- about time I replaced the bald tires -- and have them give it an oil change, replace a few plastic rivets etc etc.

I was back a little after 5pm and got the trailer back into the barn.  Backing the trailer up into the barn is a lot easier with an automatic transmission !

That day was done.  I'm not finished with Jim's trailer, however.  I have the wire and I'm going to fix those lights !!  Once I have the 4-wheeler back, I'll use it to get the trailer into the barn, hoist up both sides and re-wire the lights.  I should also pick up a replacement wheel bearing, but I'll check with Jim on that.

Sandy made risotto for dinner; lots of fungi, very good.  The place smelled of roasting mushrooms. 

Onward ...