DIY bike stuff-ups

[martybabe]

What Have you stuffed up whilst tinkering with your ride, done an expert repair with gaffa tape and blue tack?

When I was young stupid and broke, I wanted to fit some crash bars to my old BMW. I knew sweet f#ck all about bike mechanics but I'm fairly handy at DIY and the job didn't look too hard so I blindly set about sticking them on.

I only had a box of rusty old spanners my late Father had left me, none of them metric so none of them quite fitted but close enough, nothing wrong with a few rounded nuts.Torque settings? wtf are they then, just keep tightening till ya can tighten no more eh.

Encouraged by the ease at which the front ones mounted, I stuck the back ones on, sweet as. It looked good,Arnie schwarzapimmple couldn't have done the nuts up any harder with these spanners, so off I went for a jolly good test ride.

Well I'd gone about 20 metres and the alarm bells are ringing, she's handling like shite So I decided to go round the block and back to the bat-cave for a quick look see. First left hander it bounced so hard I nearly came off.

Anyhow, back at moon-base Alpha, I'm mega perplexed, everything looks fine, all the nuts are tightened to the point of sheering off. no blooming idea what's going on, best check the spark plugs

After walking round and round the bastard for ages,My mechanics eye spotted what might be the cause of the problem.I still don't know how it happened to this day but I'd connected the rear crash bars to the top of the rear shocks and...also to the bottom of the rear shocks

I had in fact re invented the hard-tail sty-lie

So Home mechanics extraordinaire, confession time, what have you stuffed up on your bike ? come on now tall Daddy all about it.

[Blackshear]

None thus far on my motorbike, as I learned with my pushie.

She was a beast. 2002 Spoecialized Bighit, downhill MTB.

Spent as much on parts fixing her from my whoopsies, as I did initially (1200$)

So unless It's crystal clear as to what I am doing on my bike, like wetting it and cleaning it, I make goddamn fucking sure I've seen someone else do the job on the SAME BIKE first.

So far, only had to pay someone to do my fork seals for me, as it's rather important that they actually function.

[martybabe]

So far, only had to pay someone to do my fork seals for me, as it's rather important that they actually function.

Ah, wise choice, I did the fork seals on the same bike, as it happens, I had two steel balls and a springy thing left over. Fortunately I can just about afford to pay someone else to do the difficult things these days.

[98tls]

In order to fit a clear clutch cover on the old TL i had to fit a 6 bolt TLR clutch,no problem and removed the S 5 bolt one then as time was getting on left it overnight with cover and casing off,whilst on sidestand no oil was comimg out,had to move it early next morning to go somewhere in the car so got on the bike sat it up and began to push itshitloads of oil all over the floor and i almost dropped the damn thing.

[Gremlin]

Wanted to install a radar detector... just needed a place to get power from... easy huh? Well, the cords didn't quite reach the battery, but hey, I had seen other guys hard wire it, leave it on, and flatten the bike, so I'm like, waaaaay smarter than that.

The fuel pump wire was handy... well, thats only on when the bike is on, perfect, its not like it needs all the power it would be getting (fucked if I know how to even test the theory, but all good).

Tap the wire, mount the detector, and head up the road. Goddammit, it cuts out now and then for no apparent reason. Upon further testing... every time I opened the throttle wide.... yeah... you guessed it, not enough power to run it.

I learnt more about circuits when I thought I had well and truly broken my zx10 one time. Even going down straights, it would cut in and out. Long story short, the power commander's earth wire wasn't bolted down, so each time it lost contact, no circuit, no power. No power, no signals to engine

As you might imagine, I have happily conceded I don't know the first thing when it comes to proper knowledge (I can plug punctures, check pressures and other basic shit) so now, I give all the stuff to the shop, and they do a nice install for me

[koba]

Didn't tighten the balance shaft nut properly on str8 Jackets RG150.
It was wednesday and she was entered on a race on saturday.
He first even and she was really looking foward to it...
The engine was in a bit of a mess but I managed to get one going, Peter Jones had a reserve one sorted just in case but we didn't need it in the end.

[martybabe]

W



As you might imagine, I have happily conceded I don't know the first thing when it comes to proper knowledge (I can plug punctures, check pressures and other basic shit) so now, I give all the stuff to the shop, and they do a nice install for me

Ah, finally acceptance that we may not be as savvy as we'd like to be, well done Gremlin. As for me, I shall just stick to the things I'm good at and leave any thing but the most basic stuff to the professionals, although that's not always fool proof eh.

Didn't tighten the balance shaft nut properly on str8 Jackets RG150.
It was wednesday and she was entered on a race on saturday.
He first even and she was really looking forward to it...
The engine was in a bit of a mess but I managed to get one going, Peter Jones had a reserve one sorted just in case but we didn't need it in the end.

Sorry Koba, you may have made a little error but the fact that you even know where to find the balance shaft makes you a mechanical genius in my book. Well done mate.

[vifferman]

I can think of only two. The first incident was many moons ago, when I took my Elsinore's clutch basket apart. I put it back together correctly, but without a workshop manual, or indeed a torque wrench, I just took a guess at how tight to do up the basket bolts. I ended up with a non-functioning cluthc, and had to ride to work in Friday afternoon traffic, sans clutch. Luckily, on the route of about 5 or 6 km, there was only one traffic light, so even though it was red, it wasn't a huge deal.

The second was connecting the battery charger to the battery on my VFR, and not paying attention. I had the plug-in cord connected to itself, so it formed a continuous loop, which in a millisecond became a heater element, writhing and smoking.
Of course, when I grabbed it to disconnect it, it was now very hot, and fairly molten, so it was rather painful, and difficult to disconnect in a hurry!

I also had one very lucky incident on my Fiat 132, when we live in the 'tron. I'd changed the cambelt, and we drove up to visit my sister in Glenfield. When we pulled up in the drive, it sounded really noisy (well... noisier than normal - it had factory extractors and a Coby 'muffler'). I discovered I'd forgottent to tighten the bolt on the cambelt idler, and so there was almost no tension... Luckily, it either hadn't altered the cam timing, or only byt a couple of teeth, so there was no "catastrophic interference" betwixt valves an pistons, which was what I'd changed the cambelt to avoid!

[martybabe]

I can think of only two. The first incident was many moons ago, when I took my Elsinore's clutch basket apart. I put it back together correctly, but without a workshop manual, or indeed a torque wrench, I just took a guess at how tight to do up the basket bolts. I ended up with a non-functioning clutch, and had to ride to work in Friday afternoon traffic, sans clutch. Luckily, on the route of about 5 or 6 km, there was only one traffic light, so even though it was red, it wasn't a huge deal.

The second was connecting the battery charger to the battery on my VFR, and not paying attention. I had the plug-in cord connected to itself, so it formed a continuous loop, which in a millisecond became a heater element, writhing and smoking.
Of course, when I grabbed it to disconnect it, it was now very hot, and fairly molten, so it was rather painful, and difficult to disconnect in a hurry!

I also had one very lucky incident on my Fiat 132, when we live in the 'tron. I'd changed the cambelt, and we drove up to visit my sister in Glenfield. When we pulled up in the drive, it sounded really noisy (well... noisier than normal - it had factory extractors and a Coby 'muffler'). I discovered I'd forgotten to tighten the bolt on the cam belt idler, and so there was almost no tension... Luckily, it either hadn't altered the cam timing, or only by a couple of teeth, so there was no "catastrophic interference" betwixt valves an pistons, which was what I'd changed the cambelt to avoid!

Onya Vman I'm not the only one then, either kiwis are remarkably good at bike mechanics are remarkably bad at confessing their stuff ups. Here's another one I just remembered.

The baffle vibrated loose on my RD250 in the middle of nowhere, the grub screw that held it in place was nowhere to be found so I rammed it back in the hole and continued my journey. All was well till I hit the motorway and motorway speeds. A bloody huge roar was the signal for (baffle has shot out.!)

Try as I might, I could not reach the baffle before the bloody Truck following behind me, bastard was flat as a pancake.

I rode 120 miles with a deafening howl on my right side and quiet as on the other, I swear my right ear still rings from it.

[koba]

The baffle vibrated loose on my RD250 in the middle of nowhere, the grub screw that held it in place was nowhere to be found so I rammed it back in the hole and continued my journey. All was well till I hit the motorway and motorway speeds. A bloody huge roar was the signal for (baffle has shot out.!)

Try as I might, I could not reach the baffle before the bloody Truck following behind me, bastard was flat as a pancake.

I rode 120 miles with a deafening howl on my right side and quiet as on the other, I swear my right ear still rings from it.

Oh yeah, done that too!
Had a homemade pipe, though ramming the "baffle" in would work OK for a quick test run, it didn't.
Dropped it at 80kph, but no truck for me so I wnet and got it back, once It had cooled enough I tucked it in the jacket, took it home and sorted some grub screws!

[ducatilover]

i set my valve clearances under the rocker instead of between the rocker arm and the cam. a noisy innocent mistake. didnt fuck anything. but it pissed me off.

[martybabe]

Oh yeah, done that too!
Had a homemade pipe, though ramming the "baffle" in would work OK for a quick test run, it didn't.
Dropped it at 80kph, but no truck for me so I went and got it back, once It had cooled enough I tucked it in the jacket, took it home and sorted some grub screws!

i set my valve clearances under the rocker instead of between the rocker arm and the cam. a noisy innocent mistake. didn't fuck anything. but it pissed me off.

I guess there's something to be said for using the professionals over the home bodge but then again how would you learn anything? and money is always a factor innit.

Thanks for your candid input guys, it's good to know we're not all perfect, I was thinking this thread might drag up some (I fitted my own rear sprocket and the wheel fell off) stories, thankfully not. Safe wrenching.

[Gremlin]

Since I'm in IT, I have had it from the other side... "I thought I could easily fix xyz problem, but now it won't even start"



So I know very well that attempts to DIY can end up costing you more... hence, I just leave it to the professionals (of course, you have to trust said guys, but once you have a good relationship, it pays dividends).

[enigma51]

Just search for dangerous bastard that bloke has done a few ...... I think


PS this is not being abusive only stating the facts

[ManDownUnder]

I do recasll one guy in here filling his bike on a ride up North. Bike was fine till he filled it. Something about the engine not being the compression ignition type... so the diesel his tank was now full of wasn't quite the go...

It was fuel injected and hadn't been started so the diesel was all "contained" in the tank... so a bit of bodging later, the tank was drained, a non diesel fual added to the bike and away he went with the ocassional sneeze of blue smoke pouring out the back...

All very entertaining really... and all was well - it ended well...!