Y'all might remember that I helped my buddy Henry change his rear tire about a month ago... we found
his flange and matching splines dry and about a third worn through, I noticed today that the O-ring
on the wheel was more like a D-ring
...
Anyhow, I told Henry, no problem, we'll get a new flange from HDL and a good final drive from Pinwall.
I didn't order off eBay, I called and bought one over the phone since I don't use Paypal anymore (different
story)...
Pinwall usually ships pretty quick, so after two weeks I called, they looked around and realized they
didn't have it anymore, and didn't have any record that they'd ever shipped it, and they didn't have
any others except one with a shock bolt broke off in it and one that was "gouged and corroded"... but
they had a Valkyrie coming, I could get that final drive.
In the meantime, I kept my eyes open and won the eBay bid on an AWESOME full swingarm, final drive,
flange, driveshaft, caliper from a low mileage triked Interstate - $307 (guy let me pay with a
money order)... no need to post a picture, it is my avatar now.
I called Pinwall again, they found the final drive that they were supposed to send me in shipping somewhere,
so cool, Henry gets a final drive, and I get an awesome spare. They shipped it to me two day air.
The final drive came and it was awful, way worse than what Henry already had, the splines were a little
better, but there was a bunch of internal slop, and it was so cosmetically terrible it wasn't something
that belonged on a nice Valkyrie. I called them the next day and told them I could not use the final drive
and wanted to send it back. They sent the UPS man over to my house the next day to pick it up, and I
just got an email that my credit card has been refunded in full.
Pinwall almost always sends out good stuff, and fast. And when there's a problem, they don't make it
your problem... at least that's my experience...
Anywho... what's a post without some cool pictures... we put Henry's bike back together today, we're
pretty much ready to head out to Cheaha... back when we were changing his tire, I told Henry his brake
fluid was looking kind of sad, and since we had the back off his bike we got him some rear pads and
some caliper seals and I rebuilt his caliper today...
This gelatonous glob was pretty stout... I'm pretty sure we could have made something out of it...
Henry says his rear brakes work better than his fronts now, I guess they're next
...
Tomorrow - off to Cheaha!
-Mike
PS - all that stuff on Henry's bike is the pollen that has collected on it these last few weeks...
