rrrar!
Rrarr! I am a menace with an impact driver! Rrrarrr!

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We made it as far as the front socket nut. Those with SVs who've removed the front socket are hopefully nodding in commiseration right about now. We tried breaker bars. We tried mallets. We tried breaker bars and mallets. I think at one point we even tried reasoning with the nut. It wouldn't budge. Eventually, we figured out (being the bright people that we are) that we were actually turning the whole front sprocket and chain and rear sprocket, despite being in gear and holding down the rear brake. We wrapped a thick pipe in a terry cloth rag and jammed it through the rear sprocket and wheel, chocking it up against the swingarm. Now the front sprocket wouldn't move...but neither would that nut. Eventually, we took it as an excuse to spend money, and went to the local Ace Hardware. They didn't have anything useful, so back in the car we went (sound familiar? Story of my weekend) and headed over to Sears. I ended up with a 1/2" drive extension, a 32mm socket, and a hand-held impact driver. Back at home, we took turns whacking the living hell out of the nut with the impact driver, with little success -- other than that it sure felt good to hit it. It must have loosened the nut a little, however, because Mark's next pass with the 32mm socket, 1/2" drive extension, 3' breaker bar, and rubber mallet finally won over the 105 ft-lb torque and red loc-tite of the nut.

Lest you think us violent people, let it be known that actual advice given on the SV mailing list on this topic included baseball bats.

Once the front sprocket nut was off, we proceeded fairly quickly to removing the rear wheel and chain. At the risk of sounding like a complete moron, I have no idea if the stock chain had a master link or not. We made one pass around, agreed that we hadn't seen it, and I said, "oh screw this, let me get the Dremel". Seeing sparks fly is a soothing sight after spending two and a half hours removing one nut, let me tell you.

At this point, I unwrapped the new front sprocket, and saw that it was missing the rubber pieces that are attached to the stock front sprocket. I tried to pry off the latter with a screwdriver, but it wasn't having any of that. I suppose I'll look up the microfiche online tomorrow and see if it's listed (the Suzuki manual, in its infinite wisdom, does not actually include any information whatsoever about the removal or installation of the front sprocket. Nor, as a matter of fact, anything about removing or installing the chain at all. Thanks, Suzuki!). If so, I suppose I'll have to go and order those rubber pieces. Foo.

Now it was time to remove the rear sprocket from the rear sprocket mounting drum (explained by Cat as "that annoying heavy piece that falls off and hits your leg when you remove the wheel"). Mark had wisely escaped at this point, but my neighbor Rob had come downstairs to chat and was thus suckered into helping remove these particular highly-torqued nuts. Once again, the thick pipe was dug out and threaded through the socket; Rob stood on one end, while I stood on the other and used the breaker bar on the nuts, hoping that I wouldn't be flung over Rob like a seesaw when they loosened. We did this for all five nuts and bolts, much to the delight of Rob's four year old son Inigo, who offered helpful advice such as "Carolyn? You can't ride a motorcycle with only one wheel on it!".

Eventually we got all five nuts, bolts, and washers off, and could remove the old rear sprocket. I put the new one on, put the washers and nuts on the bolts, torqued three of the five nuts on...and then stripped the remaining two. Whee! Inigo and Rob kept me entertained through all of this ("Daddy? Tell Carolyn the story of the red motorcycle!" "Daddy? Tell Carolyn the story of the green motorcycle!" -- apparently, Rob has many sad wrecked bike stories from his youth) until Rob took Inigo up to bed and I gave up on the bolts for the time being.

The Bandit's battery was fully charged, so I dropped it into its mounting bracket and screwed the terminals on. At about this time, I was IMing Cat about the stripped rear sprocket nuts (thank goodness for the hiptop; where would I be if I couldn't IM from my garage?). I was just about to type "well, at least the Bandit's battery is done without a hitch" when, in a move that it could have only learned from the Nighthawk, the Bandit said pah-tooey and popped the very last bolt in half as I was screwing it in. It didn't even snap; it just softly broke in half practically in my hand. I said "gosh darn", or something similar -- luckily I could just un-bolt the rest of the mounting bracket and retrieve the broken bolt; no screw extraction kit necessary.

I cleaned up the rest of the garage: brought everything in from outside, swept up a little, put away errant tools. I picked up that rear sprocket mounting drum and rear sprocket and set it on the workbench. I sat down on my little stool and just stared at it. I couldn't use the screw extraction kit, because both the nut and bolt were stripped -- turning the bolt would just keep turning the nut, and I don't have a vise or vise grips to hold it in place. I couldn't just unscrew the nut for the same reason. The head of the bolt was flat and flush against the back of the mounting drum, so I couldn't get a good grip on it to pull or turn. My pliers weren't getting a good enough grip on the nut to yank up as I turned, to try and force the nut's threads to jump into the bolt's. And so, as with all hopeless tasks, it fell to the Dremel.

I put on the protective goggles and a dust mask and got to work on the nut and bolt. The cutting circle was too large to just cut the nut off -- I'd have to slice all the way down through both the nut and bolt. This wasn't really a problem; the bolt was almost certainly stripped as well and would need to be replaced anyway. Sparks flew once more, and my entire workbench was soon coated in a fine layer of rear sprocket mounting bolt and nut. I'm fairly convinced that I probably gave myself cancer breathing through this whole episode.

After about 20 minutes, I'd managed to cut down through the entire nut, with only a few slight dings ("ding" is really even too strong a word) on the rear sprocket itself. With a good tug from the pliers, the nut popped off and the bolt dropped through the mounting drum. Success! I'm not sure that the picture really does it justice, but that nut was really and truly munged. Whoops.

I left the other nut and bolt for later in the week; I figured that I'd given myself enough lung cancer for one night. Seeing as that it was also drawing near 10pm, I think my neighbors were happy that I packed up the Dremel for the evening.

So, tomorrow I'll head back to Ace Hardware and pick up another battery mounting bolt for the Bandit; the SVS rear sprocket mounting nuts, bolts, and washers will probably have to be ordered through a dealer, yay.

One of these days, I'll actually ride my bikes again. The Nighthawk is the only rideable one right now, and that's blocked in by the other two. *sigh* Looks like I'll be cage-bound for the next few days, until I can get the SVS parts and replace the chain and wheel (since, as Inigo told me, you can't ride a motorcycle with just one wheel on it!). I have two weeks maximum, though, since it has to be up and running for the March 9 Sport-Touring.net ride to Lake Berryessa.