Went to the garage (which our landlord made possible for us because he and his wife went to the canaries islands for the winter) and wanted to do the usual maintenance, chain and sprockets, oil, tires, brakes, fluid changes, and spark plugs etc… First the Africa Twin.
Tank off, Spark plug one: done, Spark plug two: Hmmm, doesn´t feel right, hmmmm doesn´t sound right, ARRRRHHHHGGGG I had it in my hand ….. Together with the thread!
OK, don’t panic…
OK PANIC!

A quick post in the forum (www.africatwin.de) checking possibilities, none of them is promising, except a complete overhaul…and within 24 hours I got a new cylinder head and various offers to help… What a great forum that is!

Now I have to remove the whole engine, about 1.999 screws, change the cylinder head, put it all back together again. There was another option, a “quick and dirty” one, just use a Helicoil and leave the engine mounted while installing it (this is the dirty part NOT the Helicoil itself, I heard only good things about it!). But then you never know if some of the aluminum went into the cylinder and if so it will burn the whole thing soon or later and if this “later” happens somewhere in the Andes we are screwed. So I will do a complete overhaul of the cylinder… must be around 100-1500 hours of work (Ok others may do it in 24h or so – but I can´t). On the other site I have seen the whole bike then from inside out!  

Never done that before – so wish me luck! And if some motorcycle mechanic is around Hamburg on the weekend and knows about such things pass by, have a beer and let me know how that works!

I will start meanwhile…