felix42o Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 I went thru a bunch of starter fluid and then burned the starter out on my 82 magna last spring after forgetting that I turned the fuel petcock off at the end of the previous riding season. Oops. Last week, I replaced the rectifier on the tenni. Since it was aftermarket, I had to re-do the wiring. Used the wrong schematic, wired it backwords. Fried said rectifier. Replaced again, now the stator's toasted. Great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbikerrick Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Back in 1998 , I bought one of the first Suzuki 1500 LC intruders that came out, got it brand new. I read on a website that the bikes were known to have the cable operated automatic compression release that was operated by an electrical solenoid when you thumbed the starter, mis adjusted,as the cable length had an adjuster on it. Since I love to tinker with shit, I decided to check mine. I had to set the front jug at TDC, and didnt want to remove the side cover to look at the flywheel marks, so I pulled a spark plug , and inserted a paper mate plastic ball point pen in the hole, then hit the starter slightly, darn if the long stroke on that bugger allowed the pen to drop completely in the cylinder as the piston went down. I tried for days to "fish it out" to no avail. I was about to trailer the bike to the dealer and admit I was a dumbass and dropped a pen inside my jug.( could you imagine the laughs /jokes I would cause in the dealership!) Then I got an idea, since I work in the medical field, i have a bud who works in a pulmonary bronchoscopy lab, I trailered the bike to the back area of the hospital,and he used a flexible fiber optic bronchoscope to go down through the spark plug hole and retrieve the pen, took all of 5 minutes! I still have that pen glued to the wall on top of my workbench with a blue ribbon attached to it that my wife wrote "dip wad award" on it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdude Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 first time ever on a bike, I got to try my mates tuned 200ccm two stroke at 17. A difficult and well used beast, the bike that was... It was summer and we were at my mates farm, so of course we wore shorts only. I got on and fired up. Then I just couldnt get it in gear. I tried forever by stomping on the pedal, giving it stick and letting go of the clutch to free up the gears. Nothing worked. While still sitting on the seat I bent over to have a look at the pedal to see if it was jammed/broken/whatever. Of course I didnt let go of the gas, and when bent over I accidentally opened the throttle. The bike also slid slightly forwards, and I got a bit startled. Didnt want to lose my best friends bike, understandably, so I got upright and stomped the brake pedal to stop it. The throttle was still open and the pedal wasnt the brake but the gear lever. The f_kn bike was the other way round. First gear engaged with a huge bang, the bike did a nice burnout and a huge wheelie straight out into the shrubbery where it went to rest on the side, with the silencer right on my leg. I still recall the sensation of just lying there listening to the hissing sound, a bit like frying a particularly fat piece of bacon.... No big damage done but a considerable burn, but I didnt get on a bike for three years afterwords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete roper Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 The year was 1973. I was a hot young kid who had just got his first 'Sports Moped' , (Stop laughing up the back! I missed out on getting a real motorbike by about two weeks! Given where this story is going it's probably just as well!). Anyway, back in those days you could still ride around most of Cambridge, (Cambs, England, not Mass. US) so there was I riding my new *bike* up King's Parade, (In front of King's Chapel that you see on all the postcards.) and there on the footpath was Abigail Desmond! I was desperately in lust with Abigail Desmond. A shatteringly beautiful brunnete, (In fact she was probably just another horrid spotty teenage girl but to a horrible spotty teenage boy....???? ) with a pair of very comely udders. I gawked at her and waved, (She completely ignored me!) when I looked back towards the road it was just in time for me to relize that I was about to embed myself in the back of a Morris 1100 which I did with aplomb! I sailed up into the air using my gonads as a launch pad into the back of the tank. It was all very tawdry and dull, It was also the time of 'Loon' pants which had no pockets, and for three weeks I had to wander around with balls the size of grapefruit and the colour of plums with no way of holding the tight trews away from them. F@rk that hurt!!!!! The tank retained the two bollock shaped dents in the back until I sold it to buy my next rolling disaster. I eventually lost one of the bollocks to a surgeon's knife a few years later and I'm truly astonished I could ever sire children, (Actually looking at my revolting brood perhaps I should accuse Jude of adultery and wash my hands of the whole ghastly lot of 'em!). Making a complete c*nt of yourself is all part of growing up. Youth, as the old maxim says, is wasted on the young! The great thing is being able to look back and see exactly what a hopeless little dipsh!t you actually were and laugh at it. It also gives you a LOT more tollerance of your own loathsome offspring. Anything they can f*ck up! I could f*ck it up ten times better when I was their age Pete 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jihem Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 I took off with the steering locked on a CL350 79345[/snapback] first Ducati I ever rode was a very expensive and very rare 851 (888 in fact) SP2. I did 100 meters and then decide i would go in another direction and so got engaged in doing my first ever first gear U-turn with a Ducati. No one ever told me that you NEVER U-turn a Ducati, cos the steering lock is more of a lock... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike wilson Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Another Velocette starting story. Being profoundly in love with my black and gold mistress, I did not want any other little oik purloining her. So I devised the masterplan of folding a piece of paper over the spark plug and putting the cap back on. This was long before the days of useful locks and suchlike. Coming back to the beast, one only had to remember to remove the paper before trying to start it. You know you are in trouble when the bystanders are counting the kicks out loud, in unison.......... A variation was to do it on a damp night, when there was just enough leakage to allow it to start and run, until the paper dried out with the heat of the plug. My right thigh has a circumference noticably larger than my left. mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Werner Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Two more dumb asses checking in. I spent two days trying to push start a Triumph Thunderbird that I had just overhauled. Finally figured out that the spark plug wires were on the wrong spark plugs. My friend filled his Honda shadow with diesel fuel and then couldn't understand why the bike just sputtered and quit 5 miles down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmc5733946 Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 True confessions, back when I was young my brother and I used my Bell Star to increase the effectiveness of the funny little cigarettes we smoked. This scheme worked so well that on leaving my brothers apartment on my way to work one summer evening, I pulled up to a stop light next to a beautiful young lady in a convertible with the top down, just as I made eye contact and pulled to a stop I realized I had forgotten to put my foot down. I crashed into the side of her car with my head above the door. Too high I guess, I don't remember what was said but the upshot was I was a complete dolt and should find a better way to introduce myself to people. BMC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aironepony Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Once nailed down a whole length of floor board, happily ignoring the water pipe beneath................ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest redguzziv10 Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 i was the only kid in school with a "proper" bike. having passed my test a few days after my 17th birthday, i promptly went out a bought a Honda 550K3, the thing was so damn big and heavy for my barely 10 stone physique, that as soon as speeds got below 10mph it was virtually guaranteed i'd go over sideways on it. Sometimes i'd resign myself to the fact it was gonna fall on me that i'd take a leap before it did, then watch the thing skid down the road for another ten yards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeBenGuzzi Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 i was the only kid in school with a "proper" bike. having passed my test a few days after my 17th birthday, i promptly went out a bought a Honda 550K3, the thing was so damn big and heavy for my barely 10 stone physique, that as soon as speeds got below 10mph it was virtually guaranteed i'd go over sideways on it.Sometimes i'd resign myself to the fact it was gonna fall on me that i'd take a leap before it did, then watch the thing skid down the road for another ten yards 79427[/snapback] Thats almost on a whole nother level. Not only was it stupid and dangerous you intentionally did it everytime you got on the bike. That needs some kind of an award. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docc Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 My friend filled his Honda shadow with diesel fuel and then couldn't understand why the bike just sputtered and quit 5 miles down the road. 79392[/snapback] I can tell you that pulling this stunt on an injected bike( er, like my V11 Sport ) won't get you around the next pump island. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orson Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 I was 18 so, I already knew all there was to know Late one afternoon, I stopped by a friend's house for a chat. Had a couple beers, etc. By the time I was ready to leave for home, the sun had gone down....and me with a dark shield on my Bell Star Not to worry, it was just a 5 minute ride to the house. Riding through a residential area, I could see streetlights receding into the distance. Streetlights = a roadway, I reasoned. Suddenly, through my dark shield, I detected that the road surface was no longer paved. A second later, my brilliant powers of perception noticed that the road surface was now going downhill at a sharp angle. A few moments later, I was going airborne over the handlebars. Performing a midair manouver that would have made any Romanian gymnastics coach proud, I proceeded plant myself helmet first into a muddy river bottom. Fortunately for me, the mud had cushioned my impact. I turned back to see my bike, still perfectly upright, the front wheel planted in mud up to its axle. The streetlights I had noticed before were on the other side of the river! I spent the next three hours extricating the bike from the mud then trying to push it up the short slope. I would push mightily only to get the front wheel inches from the top before sliding back down into the muck. Finally, exhausted and defeated, I abandoned the bike and walked back home. What had been a 5 minute ride turned into a 6 hour ordeal. The next day a friend with a pickup helped me tow the beast back up to the street. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike wilson Posted February 22, 2006 Share Posted February 22, 2006 It was still there??!! You were lucky....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orson Posted February 22, 2006 Share Posted February 22, 2006 It was still there??!! 79632[/snapback] It was a small North Dakota town. Like Mayberry...Otis would let himself into the drunk tank at night Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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