I will have to respectfully disagree.First Blu,glad you are both OK,with minimal damage to the scoot.The reason I say this is because about 2 weeks ago I was leading a bunch of guys from my crew on a ride to Eureka,NV for lunch.Coming to the US50 turn coming into town,I misjudged the sweep of the curve,and promptly ran off the road at about 50 mph.As soon as I realized I wasn't going to make the turn,I immediately started looking for my exit route.Luckily,The shoulder was a gradual slope,and I was able to keep it upright whilst bouncing through the bar ditch/sagebrush.For a minute,I thought I was gonna ride it out and re-enter the hwy.Better sense took over and told me to shut 'er down and re-evaluate.Since I was still in sixth gear,this would not have gone well.I looked back to see all 5 of my riding buddies on the shoulder wondering WTF!?As I snicked her back down to 1st,and pulled her back onto the road,I felt like...........a complete jackass.
I am not sying Blu IS a jackass,but brutha I feel ya.I'm just glad nobody followed me off the road.

 

Sorry for the long read.

Well it's been two weeks since I decided to take a tour of an Arkansas ditch.

Once I got the bike back to the house I tore it all down so as to get a good look at the damage.
To my pleasure I didn't see anything new that I would consider major.

I got hooked up with LRS's annual "garage sale" and picked up a new windshield for $33 shipped.
I ordered two new shock mount bolts off e-bay for $15.

After pulling the engine guard off I found it slightly bent.
Since it was showing signs of wear anyway I decided not to try to straighten it and ordered a new one from Surdyke Harley for $180.

The bitch of everything as expected was the broken shock mount bolt.
It was easy to see that it was next to impossible to get the broken bolt out of the swing arm without taking the swing arm off.

I did some research and by all accounts taking the swing arm off didn't seem to be that difficult so I went for it.
I was able to get the swing arm off in a couple of hours and that was with me taking my time.

Once the swing arm was off I saturated the broken bolt with PB Blaster and let it sit overnight.
BTW, the bolt broke off about an 1/8 of a inch inside the swing arm so I knew I was not going to be able to use a chisel and tap it out.

The next morning I went to Lowes and got an EX-5 easy-out bit/extractor for $7. (EX-5 is what Irwin recommends for a 1/2" bolt)
I started out by drilling a small hole in the broken bolt and then incrementally increased the drill bit size until I got to the size needed for the EX-5 extractor.

During my research of easy-out use was the consistent advice to not be in a hurry and force the drill bits.
If you break off a drill bit, the job just got a lot harder.

I tapped in the extractor and heated up the swing arm mount.
Then SLOWLY started to turn the extractor counterclockwise and to my joy the bolt started to turn out.
A couple of minutes later the bolt was out.

A couple of days later my shock mount bolts arrived.
About 2 hours later the rear end was back together.

Friday my new engine guard arrived, I installed it along with my leather lowers and the bike was all back together.
Took it for a 1 hour ride and everything rode like it should.

In all I ended up spending less than $250 and $180 of that was the new engine guard.
As noted earlier I think I was extremely lucky on this.
It's not often you can ditch a bike and walk away without a scratch and with less than $250 damage.

I'll just put this ordeal in the back of my mind and ride on.

 

Outstanding!

 

Love a story with a happy ending. Glad it worked out, man! Also thank you for your service.