With One day to go...

I broke my motorcycle...

"Did you fit the kickstart from your last engine then?" Asked my Father the day before the day before I left.
"Well, I figured I could just bump start her, she's not too heavy..." Was my response, inspired by a combination of laziness and lack of mechanical competence.
"Well you can't push it through sand in the desert... or mud."

He has a very good point. Balls.

So, with one day to go I dropped the oil and eased the engine casing off. It was a good while since I had taken the clutch off my last engine (The original engine in my bike blew up at an indicated 80mph on the M4 to Bristol...), and as well as the four clutch spring bolts, there was a central bolt in the middle of the boss. Thinking I had to take the clutch pretty well apart I assumed this was coming off at some point anyway, so I undid it... (Note For Later!)
As it started getting darker outside I had put the kick-start assembly in, tested the action and re-assembled the clutch in place. Just as it was becoming entirely dark I slipped the oil seal over the kicker shaft and squeezed the engine casing back on. I had noticed it wasn't seating properly, and had remembered one of the dowels was a bit troublesome getting the case on, so took a rubber mallet, and knocked it back on. There was still a small gap, which I managed to close by torchlight while torquing up the engine case bolts.
I filled her with oil, and jumped on the kick lever and she rumbled into life. Sweet. I went to bed chuffed, I had assumed that something ridiculous, disastrous or at least calamitous would have halted all progress and led to a stressful day of failed departure...

The next morning I pulled her out of the garage and saw the clutch lever flop inwards and rest against the back of my knuckles. It had absolutely no action or resistance.

I had done something terribly wrong. Balls.

I dropped the oil and whipped off the engine casing again, and on the kickstart shaft I noticed the brand new oil seal I installed in the dark was a wrecked, squeezed and squashed mess. I remembered hammering the casing back on and squeezing the bolts tight into the engine and instantly knew exactly how stupid I was. Looking at the engine casing again, I could see the oil seal fits outside of the casing around the shaft.

Rushing in the dark I had put it in the totally wrong place. Balls.

I rang Fowlers of Bristol and they had the oil seal I needed, but the next day (when I had planned to leave) was a Saturday and their one-day delivery didn't count Saturdays... I set about trying to carefully prise the old seal out of my old engine casing. With some of the most zen-inspired tunes I could find I used all my (little) patience to remove it with as little damage as possible and Bob Marley, once again, saw me through.

The engine casing went on perfectly this time, and I managed to squeeze the oil seal in, filled her up with oil and she started with no gushes, squirts or even dribbles from the re-used seal. But the clutch was still entirely non-functional.

I had totally forgotten the actual problem at hand. Balls.

So, I dropped the oil again, got the engine casing off and started to look at the clutch. Everything appeared to be done up properly, and there was nothing missing. I took it off and apart and everything still seemed sweet.
I looked and looked. Nothing seemed wrong, and I had put everything back.
Several hours of looking, poking and swearing ensued, and I became convinced I had entirely disabled my motorbike the day before I was to leave on it!

I asked my Father to look at it, and then, for completeness' sake, I described everything I had undone or touched. While describing removing and replacing the central clutch bolt (See Earlier Note!) it suddenly became clear I had messed with the fine adjustment of the whole clutch boss. A lot of fiddling and approximating later I had a clutch that worked!

Looking back, if I hadn't put the clutch out of whack I would never have known about the oil seal I trashed, and would have only figured out something was wrong far away from home most likely by a sudden loss of engine oil!
So in a bizarre twist of fate my incompetence and lack of experience and knowledge actually saved me!
Kind of...