An ode to five minute jobs

Well, with but two weeks left before I'm due to depart for the port, the side-spacers arrived for my panniers.

The first one went on fine, and looks pretty good - it'll do the job, though it does leave me with *even more* chrome to polish!

Left side pannier spacer, fitted and good to go.

What should have been a five minute job to get the other side on has pretty much turned into a nightmare instead, with the final fender bolt sheering off completely when trying to unscrew it. A pain, but not the end of the world I suppose. The remainder of the bolt was soon drilled out, and a tap used to clean up the thread and remove what was left of the bolt. Well, that was the plan anyway, and it was going great until the tap itself snapped - leaving high tensile steel plugging the bolt hole.

The remains of the original bolt

Yeah, that's not coming out in a hurry

Betty is now back with Trackside Motorcycles, who inform me that the best course of action is to remove the rear tyre, strip down the fender and hammer/chisel the remainder of the tap.

So close, yet so far...

I've not really budgeted for any unexpected work, but in this circumstance I don't really have much choice. It takes as long as it takes, and costs what it costs. Lets just hope there aren't too many other small and easy jobs cropping up, especially those which turn out to be neither.