Killing Time at Bud's

Things were really slow at work this afternoon. Okay, so things are never slow, I was just really frustrated and about to throw what I was working on through the wall. In lieu of destroying the project and some impromptu remodeling of the lab, I decided to take a few hours and pop on down to Bud's for some parts I needed.

I was hoping that it wouldn't be so busy since this was a weekday afternoon. The previous times I've been were on Saturdays which can be quite crowded. To my luck, there were hardly any people there which allowed me to browse unimpeded.  

Even without the crowd, Aaron was busy as always. The guy is a wealth of information on motorcycles and knows where (or at least in the general vicinity) every part in the place is located. With this, he's the go-to guy for the place so everyone that comes in or calls wants to talk to him. Needless to say, time with him is limited and it's impossible to have a complete conversation in one session due to others constantly seeking his wisdom.

That's okay, I'm patient and was in no hurry. Plus I always love digging around in places like that. Well today I was in luck! I brought my shopping list, complete with OEM part numbers and descriptions. I discussed the parts with Aaron and then was able to show him them in the HD parts manual. 

Once he realized I knew exactly what I was looking for (and since he was super busy), he let me come behind the counter and look through their inventory for the parts myself. He told me how things were organized and just requested that I leave it no messier than I found it. Otherwise, he turned me loose. I was like a kid in a candy store!

I was looking for a new set of inner and outer sprocket covers as well as a few other miscellaneous parts mentioned in my post about the sprocket nut wear on the inner cover. Specifically, these parts were on my list:

  Part #      Description
  34848-77    SPACER ASSEMBLY 77 & 78 - XLCH
  34893-75    SPROCKET COVER, inner N/A 77 & 78 - XL, XLCH 
  34870-75A   SPROCKET COVER 77 to * - XL

I didn't find what I needed back there but I found a lot that I wanted. Since I struck out searching behind the counter (as if being allowed back there wasn't cool enough), Aaron took me next door to the service garages and let me look through their own, private stash of small Sportster parts. That was super cool of him, and I really appreciated be allowed to do that.

Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck finding the inner cover or spacer support there either. But I did take the opportunity to look through every drawer on the chance that I'd see a part I might need or hadn't thought of yet.

In the end, I only came away with two parts. Neither of which were on my shopping list for the day but still useful. 

A spare lock washer is always a good thing to have since it seems like as soon as you bend the tabs more than once, they almost always break. The license plate bracket wasn't completely necessary either but it's NOS and in a lot better shape than my current one.

So I didn't find what I was looking for specifically, but the afternoon wasn't a total waste. I had fun digging through all the old parts and it was a good way to blow off some steam. Not to mention that it prevented me from destroying the system I was working on and a major portion of our lab.