one thing led to another

I'll start off by saying that this is the first time I've done any serious soldering, apart from the end of cables this is all the soldering I've done.

I replaced the wires coming from the stator, one at a time, put on the crimped circle end bits and taped them up nice. I was happy that it was the best I could do and then went about re-installing it back on the scoot. A comedy of errors through distraction led to me squashing up the little tab in the centre of the stator, breaking the leather, which was all but worn through anyway, off, bending one of the screws and scoring the back side of the stator......

Now its not rocket science, feed the wires through, locate the timing marks and do up the three screws, flywheel on, torque nut, sit back after the ten minutes and have a beer and congratulate yourself... It didn't quite go like that though.

Attempt one, wires fed through, screws done up, but the one closest to the wire hole had clamped the heat shrink wrap and I couldn't pull it through, so off it came.

That sorted, attempt two everything on, looking good, fly wheel on but not all the way, I first thought the woodruff key might be stopping it from going right on, so I took it out cleaned it, checked the slot in the shaft and flywheel, all good. Back on same thing, gave it a bit of a push, still wouldn't move. off again. This time I left the woodruff key out and it slid straight on. OK I thought, persistence will pay off so back on, key in this time and I got a bit more thread and was very close to where it should be, so I put the lock washer and nut on the shaft gave it some. I went to get the torque wrench ready and thought, I'm sure it moved last time, sure enough the flywheel was solid. WTF have I done. You know that wave of panic that sets in when you realise you may have really stuffed something up, well that happened.

I pulled it off to find that in my diligence of sorting the wiring cover I had only done two of the screws up properly the last one was a good 4-5mm from home. feck and it was bent, in the bottom pic you can see the score on the flywheel, idiot, I then proceeded to strip the head of the screw trying to get it out.

I ended up straightening it with a punch and with little left in the Phillips head eased it out. It was then I noticed that the little flap bit was bent and squashed, the leather broken and hanging off.

So I packed up the tools, sat down, had a cold beer and instead of congratulating myself, I sat there swearing under my breath and shaking my head. I'm not sure how many straws I have left before I lose it. This has pissed me off.