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The Death Grinder


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Kevin Cameron has been writing about motorcycles for nearly 50 years, first for <em>Cycle magazine</em> and, since 1992, for <em>Cycle World</em>.
Kevin Cameron has been writing about motorcycles for nearly 50 years, first for <em>Cycle magazine</em> and, since 1992, for <em>Cycle World</em>. (Robert Martin/)

The Death Grinder was given its name by Canadian roadracer Miles Baldwin, who discovered it as an effective tool for dealing with two-stroke racebike crash damage. It was a simple yet terrifying device: a heavy-duty 3-foot-long flexible shaft with one end connected to a big electric motor and a fixture at the other end where you could mount anything you liked, such as a grindstone, an abrasive cutoff disc, a wire brush. Having no guard of any kind, it was horribly dangerous. Every time I used it I thought of the grindstone or cutting disc coming apart at 3,600 rpm and a hatchet-shaped fragment cutting my throat, or of snagging it in my clothing and tearing my shirt, pants, or skin off. It was crazy, so I was careful to stay out of its “plane of action” when using it.

Like most racers, Miles crashed from time to time, and a big get-off might include crushing one or more of his Yamaha’s exhaust pipes. If you’re not familiar with two-stroke pipes they’re very different from the plain cylindrical tubing that is bent up into four-stroke pipes. From each cylinder’s exhaust port came a curving header pipe maybe a foot long, followed by a divergent cone in two steps. Then came the center section, typically close to 4 inches in diameter and 5 or more inches long. This was the part that usually got crushed on a Yamaha TZ750, because three of the four pipes were directly under the engine. From the center section the pipe tapered down again to an exit pipe of 3/4-inch internal diameter, plus a “track grenade” muffler. As a whole, the pipes snaked along, fitted tight under the chassis to keep them from grounding in turns.

Why didn’t we follow the factory-team practice of just slapping on a new set after a crash? Because we were very much not factory, and because Stuart Toomey’s hand-made smokestacks cost $2,400 (circa 1980), the equivalent of eight grand today.

When a pipe got crushed, the drill was to arm the Death Grinder with a thin cutoff disc and carefully open the damaged part at a circumferential seam. The noise was powerful, and a dramatic stream of sparks flew from the incision. Once the pipe was open, it was a relatively simple matter to rework its shape back to cylindrical, then weld the two halves back together.

Why didn’t we just buy one of those little right-angle grinders people use to remove  drive-chain rivets, or to prevent 1991 GSX-Rs from grounding their sidestand brackets in left-handers?  Frankly, the reason was economic. What we had was the Death Grinder; what we didn’t have was any surplus cash.

We were very, very careful with that thing. With that, plus luck, we never made any unscheduled visits to the emergency room. A day came when its motor stopped working, and though we tried, it proved impossible to remove the flex shaft for replacement. As it happened, there was a dumpster handy. Since people have stopped bringing crashed two-strokes to my shop these days, I decided to draw a line under all the good luck we’d consumed in using that machine. Thump—into the dumpster it went.

But the Death Grinder provided some valuable lessons. Whenever I use power equipment these days I try to survey the possibilities before switching on. People my age—especially motorcyclists—know too many sad stories of injuries that could so easily have been avoided.

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