Well, I finally managed to achieve the near impossible - a totally oil tight primary drive case. The bike is running beautifully and yesterday I had a lovely 80 mile ride through the Lake District in the sunshine, enjoying every moment, Until...
About five miles from home my gear lever worked itself loose and dropped off (which it is prone to doing). I realised that this must have been within the last mile or so, so I managed to swing the bike round in the road and slowly ride back looking for it, riding the clutch in second to stop the engine stalling. I eventually found it, and re-fitted it, but by this time there was smoke issuing from the back of the clutch and the casing was scalding hot to the touch. I left it to cool down and tried to start it, but now the clutch was slipping so badly that there was no way I could get it to turn the engine over.
I abandoned the bike and hitched a lift home to collect my car and trailer. This morning I tried it again, thinking, rather optimistically, that it might have cooled properly overnight. No change. Have I completely knackered my clutch plates or is there anything else that I can try before disturbing my oil-tight primary?
I live at the top of a hill, so I was considering having a go at bump starting it, in the hope that that might free things up a bit, but I am not sure that would work either.