Gumption Trap

Today I broke through a major gumption trap. If you're not familiar with gumption traps you must use different terminology for what is a common experience to mankind. We get stuck, hung up, stopped, etc. I came across the term in the book entitled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. His section on gumption is very good and I'm happy to say I got moving today.

Recently I tore my motorcycle down further than I have ever disassembled it before. This is an attempt to save $1,200 in motorcycle repairs. We'll see if I'm successful.

I've been at this for a long while because I hit a gumption trap. Taking the motorcycle apart was not so hard. What you see pictured here is now in pieces and occupying a 4 shelf shelving unit. I did have to have some help once from someone more knowledgeable than me, and I had to buy some tools (not such a bad thing).

My gumption trap has been a gasket, yes a simple gasket. I had the idea that I would take a scraper and remove the thing in a couple of minutes. Not so. I have scraped, and scraped and bought gasket remover and scraped and scraped and reapplied and reapplied the gasket remover. Naturally the parts of the gasket that have been the hardest to remove were also the parts that were the most difficult to get to. But today, due to utter boredom with other activities, nothing on television, nothing on the computer, my wife being busy with other activities and no friends calling me up with more interesting tasks, I finally gritted my teeth, turned on the heater and lights in the garage and applied a lot of elbow grease to the situation.

The gasket is now completely removed and the surface beneath is cleaned with brake cleaner. I turned the part over and there, before my wondering eye did appear, another gasket that had to be removed. Uuggghhh.

Yes, I tackled it immediately. Yes, I removed most of the gasket. But my feet were getting cold. My stomach was calling out for Monical's Pizza. And my mind was writing this blog.

The part is now soaking in gasket remover. Is this another gumption trap? I'll find out tomorrow.