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Discussion Biggest mechanical blunders youv'e made

Discussion in 'The Pub' started by sharky, Dec 2, 2016.

  1. sharky

    sharky Well-Known Member

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    Hi all, with the mad season approaching and project time at a minimum for most, ill find that im happy with how the bike is running all of a sudden & not do anything for the next month or two;). We all hear about the wins we have in the shed, but what about those disasters we try to pretend never happened. Well I've decided to start a new thread about the biggest mechanical blunders you've made, notice the word mechanical(we all have ex's :drinks:). My biggest blunder came when I had a Kawasaki Balius In the shed i got for next to nothing & only 6000ks on the clock, it must of been a slow day because I decided that while I had the Balius motor out,I would also drop the motor out the zxr,put the balius in and go for a spin to see how she went. I didnt feel the need to attach all the temp sensor, oil, neutral switches etc because I was only going for a quick 20klm run & back out to my quite spot then home to switch motors again, not like It was gonna overheat or anything it was nearing dark. So got the motor in and went to start it up,nothing, thats right no neutral light, only an oil light,so pulled the clutch in and she fired up fine sounded great, the oil light stayed on because it wasnt connected & the temp guage wasnt working, so quickly suited up and off i went, the bike went great but would only rev out to about 12/13 thou which is probably redline for a Balius anyway, got to the end of my quite spot in the hills to turn around and it had a little stutter & stalled, kicked back over ok, took off and went probably another 200mtrs and it died suddenly and would not kick over again,it was now dark and in my rush out the door id forgotten my phone and in the middle of nowhere i was stuck big time, ended up walking in pitch black for 2 hours to the nearest house and finally got the bike home on a trailer at 2am. The next day i found the cause, 1 broken camshaft & a head that was melted from the cams, all from lack of oil flow, on further investigation i found that in my rush i had not put the little clip in properly that holds the oil pump on the shaft,even though i had done that job a hundred times before, the biggest regret though is not taking the 60 seconds to put on the oil pressure switch which would of told me there was no oil flow & saved my motor. In a happy ending that Balius bottom end was eventually used to get a mates bike back on the road and is still going strong 70,000klms later
     
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  2. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    A very very long time ago, when the universe was still evolving I owned an IT465

    A little too keen to check the tuning/work I'd done I jumped on it an rode about 2Kms to North Head hoping to give it a handful coming back up from the sewerage works...clear road, almost zero chance of the fuzz

    Anyway just at the turn past Manly hospital I went seriously sideways but didn't hit the deck, I also managed to hear a little metallic clang.
    Pulled to a stop to find the back tyre drenched in oil.

    Guess which twit in his haste had omitted to tighten the sump plug.
    I did manage to find the plug bolt really quickly - the oil trail was a big clue, rode it home very gently which wasn't so much a risk, leaving it in second the whole way
     
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  3. Joker

    Joker See "about me" for contact details. Contributing Member

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    Buying a fizzer.

    It. Never. Ends.
     
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  4. sharky

    sharky Well-Known Member

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    I remember the blue ITs growing up in Sydney, I lived at hammondville not far from Menai, the ITs were the meanest bikes in the bush even the police rode those back in the day
     
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  5. jazzhunt

    jazzhunt Well-Known Member Premium Member

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    In West End, Brisbane, when I was young and very, very dumb...Disconnected the handbrake on the RX2 coupe I was rebuilding, forgetting I had removed the wheel chocks earlier. No problem initially but, without thinking, I leaned a little on the front of the car and it moved. Suddenly remembering the chocks I raced around to the boot of the car but it was, essentially, too late. The rear wheels had passed the flat of the carport floor and had now hit the steep slope (about 30 degrees) of the 30 metre long driveway.
    All of a sudden I was desperately trying to prevent my half-built car from plunging into the corner of Vulture St and Cordelia St (quite a busy intersection), screaming at my girlfriend to help, sliding down the driveway with a whole car in my arms and wondering if there was any way I could move out of the way and risk whatever was about to happen without getting many bones broken.
    Girlfriend appeared, freaked out and opened the door to pull on the handbrake, despite me yelling there was no handbrake to pull. Thankfully, she got the door open just as me and the car slid down the driveway enough that the now-open door crunched into the carport pole and stopped all further movement.
    Cue me, flat on my back on the driveway, crying and panting and sweating and swearing....
    I would guess the whole incident only took 3 seconds and, in reality, the car only moved about 2.5 metres but it felt like hours to me and I can still plainly recall the feeling that there was no good way out of the problem - either I was going to die or I was going to be seriously messed up.
    It cost me a bunch to get the door fixed and I was happy to pay it. Since then, over the years, I've been given a lot of stick about how cautious and safety-conscious I am but that day taught me that a little care and attention can literally save your life and I've never forgotten it.
     
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  6. Damus

    Damus She is a BEAST and riding it is comparable to sex Dirty Wheel Club

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    Banging my wheel against a tree to try straighten the forks. Also putting a CDI in the oven.
     
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  7. KICKERMAN360

    KICKERMAN360 Well-Known Member

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    Heaps but thankfully I can usually fix them. The most frustrating was when I accidentally stripped the threads out of the head of my 02 CRF450R. I had just put the motor in and the previous owner must have over-tightened them. So I had to carefully drill and put helicoils in but it worked! I also broke the side cover but you could barely tell with a bit of JB Weld.

    Another was on my 98 CR125 when (somehow) I had damaged the threads on the crankshaft (flywheel side). And it was the last thing I was putting on. So instead of ripping the engine apart I got a thread rasp and got to work! About an hours work and I could start the nut. It would get so hot though from turning. The lesson was to keep a nut on the exposed threads of the crankshaft.
     
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  8. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    that's a youtube video with 10,000,000 hits nowadays
     
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  9. jazzhunt

    jazzhunt Well-Known Member Premium Member

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  10. kiffsta

    kiffsta Senior Member

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    I had my moment this morning , I bought a replacement gear shift lever for the CBR1000, I fitted it up, started the bike, clutch in and selected 1st gear, it stalled. For over an hour I adjusted the shift lever and bar to try and sort it out and couldn't get it to go into first without it stalling. I even downloaded a manual off the net hoping they had a trick to adjusting it , what I was doing was correct according to the manual, a few choice words were sent in the direction of said CBR, until the penny dropped.

    I popped the side stand up and then put it into gear, guess what it stopped stalling :headbang:

    I'm blaming last nights hang over for my misadventure :drinks:
     
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  11. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    minor rookie error there...
     
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  12. GreyImport

    GreyImport Administrator Staff Member The Chief Contributing Member

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    Did the same when I put the new clutch in the FZR .... on the paddock stand and kept stalling going into gear so I thought the plates were in wrong or something and I think from memory Murdo was there and said "sidestand up " ... bingo

    I blame it on not drinking enough :drinks:
     
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  13. Andych

    Andych Moderator Staff Member Premium Member Contributing Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    I have 2 that stand out in my memory.. both car related...
    1 Spending most of the night installing my re-built 308 Blue motor into my Commodore SLE (a long time ago), connected everything up... started putting oil in and after 4 litres realised there was no sump plug in... what a waste of 4 litres of quality oil... and to make matters worse... when the Distributor went in... I had trapped the Tacho wire under the distributor clamp plate... which wouldn't let the car run if the nacho was connected... that took 4 hours to trace.

    2 Again spending all night to get a rebuilt engine in and running... a 1300 Escort that had a 1600 GT engine with 1/2 race cam and ported head, side draught webber 45 etc... I must have been having a dyslexic moment or was too tired as the damned car would not start... I checked and double checked everything... until a mate asked if I had the plug leads on in the right firing order... of course I #%$@ did... well no... I didn't..
    Swapped them to the correct order and bang... one very loud and very rapid Escort was born...

    It is these moments of clarity that numb,e us and keep us grounded... otherwise we would all thing we are mechanical geniuses.. :)
     
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  14. Tim_

    Tim_ resident nutcase Contributing Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    Let me paint you a word picture.........

    It was a cold and frosty Saturday morning in June, I went into my garage, adorned my helmet and jacket ready for the ride ahead..... I turn the bike on, press the start button and the engine whines over and over, but alas not firing.... 3 hours i trouble shoot the bike trying to figure out why, why is it my pride, my joy, the love of my life will not kick over so I can enjoy this elegant day of riding in the cool weather of June......... My then girlfriend walks out and asks "whats wrong", I explain what has happened to bring me to this point... She then looks at me like an idiot and replies "turn the kill switch to "run" maybe?"...........

    :fuckyou::crazypilot::headbang::oops: I never did live that down....
     
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  15. my67xr

    my67xr Bike Enthusiast Staff Member Premium Member Contributing Member

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    Put me down for the side stand still being down and engine stalling going into gear after playing with the clutch too
    Probably plenty of other thing's to add here but i need to remember what
     
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  16. yahoo.rat

    yahoo.rat Member

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    was on my way to work one morning ,on my 985 kitted cb9, after tunning the carbys, and it stopped . Call up for a pickup vehicle , got home was taking the tank off , and thought that feels a bit light. And it was empty ,didn't think to check the fuel tap did I, and best part was I was only 1km from a servo, so now I always check the simple first.
     
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  17. tintankaussie

    tintankaussie Well-Known Member

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    On the famous gsx-250 my parts cam in to re-build the front brake (master and calliper) pulled it all apart ,performed a thorough clean of both units and re-installed.new brake fluid and bled the system,all safety gear on (luckily) went for a ride about 20 ks turned around to come home and on the way the bike was pulling up so kicked down to 5 then4 and so on until I got to 2 gear and full throttle I thought some thing is really wrong so started pulling over with traffic behind me,as soon as the front wheel hit the dirt on the verge of the road (country roads ) I went down like a ton of bricks hitting my helmut on the bitchumen and leg stuck under the bike,with embarrassment and adrenalin I manage to pull my leg out and stand up . got home to find the master cyl relief hole was blocked not allowing fluid to return do to pin size bit of dirt... I now always test my brakes...ken
     
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  18. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    Good to hear that the only thing bruised is your pride though, it could have played out much worse
     
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