what STUPID thing did you do with your yamaha today?

Not today, but Saturday.... I stopped at the bank on my way out of town, withdrew some cash and started pulling out of the drive-thru. After fiddling with my wallet, my butt just didn't feel quite properly stuck in my seat so I stood up while I was coasting and did a little leg shakeout to get comfortable and plopped my big butt right back down. Turned out onto the highway and rode the 30 miles to work. Get to work, pull out my phone and there was a voicemail from my bank.

"Hi, Revelcal, this is Teller from Credit Union. We noticed when you left this morning a part fell off of your motorcycle. We have it here if you want to pick it up any time this week."

It was my right side cover. When I plopped back down in my seat I must have knocked it off and didn't even notice. Of course if the rubber grommets were all present it wouldn't have happened, but mine had rotted away and split long ago, so I have just wrapped the tabs with a few layers of electrical tape so that they stick in the holes without vibrating loose. It worked OK but I've had the plate off and on a few times this week so its not as snug as it was when I first rigged it.

Not sure if I'm going to fix it the right way or just bolt a short length of chain to them so they can't fall off and just dangle by my feet if they come loose.

 

Didn't hear back from lawyer today, haven't even been out of the house for a week now, cant get to the garage.
Tomorrow my son is going to put up a make shift ramp so I can get some fresh air and sit quietly with "Maxine"

 

Those little grommets are cheap I keep a bag full on hand

 

It will if it's a good frindship to begin with.

 

Yea, there is not a close enough friendship there that i'm conceared about. Did get a rejection from Marcus & Mack today, that sucks, but i'll be talking to Edgar Snyder tomorrow. I'ts only been a week and feels like a month already. I spent every spare minute over the last 4 or 5 months out in the garage getting "Maxine" finished up. I am so glad I got done, to let that hanging all winter would of made a horrible situation even worse, and not many people would understand that either

 

That blows to listen to Keller & Keller adds on TV they will go after anyone and win...oh only if it is a big corporation ,they fail to mention that. Or you could go to the law firm of Howie, Duwe, Wescrewem ?

 

A little bit of hope today, I had a personal injury lawyer agree to take my case. The big guys "Edgar Snyder" referred my case to a smaller firm that takes their left overs.
But that's fine with me, same terms" No fee unless we get money for you " So this is the first step in a very long process, and yet like I said a glimmer of hope

 

After trying to colortune 1 and 2 for an hour i realized i didnt fully tighten the intake manifolds to the head. Tightened them up and bingo bongo all good!

 

I finally lugged my friend's (now my) parts Virago into the garage. It's almost a whole bike, and the engine spins free, now I have to tear the bike down for refurbishing. Oofta.

 

Norwegian?

 

Love Viragos had an 82 with 5k milage bought for 400$ sold for 1500$ ....I can tell you a bunch about the starter(weak point) K-moe just ask

 

Thanks for the offer. I've recomissioned a Virago before, but there are always more things to learn. If I play the long-game with it there will be a conversion to the later starting system. I still have to figure out if I have a budget or not, and what the end goal is.

 

Yep (well 46% 0f me anyway).

 

The better half is about the same make up. Father-in law has oofta mug, oofta tshirt, ect. I've been schooled on the basic points of leffse making, and informed that I will never make (or spell) it correctly, so now I just devour it instead.

 

I always thought it was spelled uff da . . .

 

Might be. I don't think that there is a standardized spelling for it.

 

Im finn/norske/irish (western south dakota... That describes 75% of the people here) it doesnt matter how you spell it, as most of the norskies cant read anyway.

 

I DIDN'T take any of them out to ride today........boy, was that STOOOPID.

 

Me either. Why do grading periods have to end on nice weekends?!

 

Our 5-wk notices were due this past week, and mid-semester grades were due last week.........too busy catching up on everything else right now, just couldn't get the time TO get out for a ride. Grrr

 

I didn't ride...my truck blew a metal brake line.Worked all day Saturday sill not done Going to bleed it today...and it is monsoon out so long truck barley fits in garage.

 

was going to carefully top off the gas before a ride but not use a funnel. got the spout just right and tilted the can up and just got a glimpse of a acorn falling out of the spout into the tank.
damm critters.
how does one get a acorn out of a gas tank? i might just leave it there

 

Once the tank is empty, unhook the fuel line, and fill the tank with water. the acorn should (if it's young enough) float up to where you can grab it with forceps or a hemostat.

 

If the acorn is floating in the gas, fill it up so it bobs near the hole.

If it sinks, wait til you're empty..... Pull the tank and tip it on its side so the acorn rolls to were you can see it a grab it with pincers, a long spoon, etc......or turn the tank upside down so it rolls next to the filler collar. You should be able te reach a couple of your finger tips in and over the grab it.

 

Get the rodent that stashed the nut. Tie a string around its ankle, make your intentions clear, toss/stuff the bugger into your tank and tell him not to come out without the acorn!

 

Bought another bike today that makes 4 in less than 2weeks
85 Maxim 700 parts bike .. anybody need anything?
I better get rid of some before my wife gets home next Saturday!!

 

Naaaah---- just tell her "hey, daves wife doesn't bother him........ He's got almost 40------" she'll be fine

 

My standard reply is that I'm turning an old motorcycle into money. Timelines and methods are never mentioned.

 

Post a pic if it in the other bikes forum.

Gary H.

 

I was at that point but didn't have a barn to store them in I was stashing them at friends homes and was up around 25 bikes.
Single car garage and 120 sq ft workshop was not enough space.
If I lived in a rural area I would have a big shop and room for 50. And my wife would never see me!

 

Left (an aftermarket) petcock on overnight, flooded the crankcase. Well, I guess it was close to an oil change anyway - fair enough.
Oh wait, I should add that changed the oil that morning, and left the petcock on for a couple hours later that day. It didn't look as if it leaked into the case again, but $35 for the peace of mind and tuition for a Stupidity 115 ain't too bad.

 

a parts bike is the bike you ride to the parts store

 

honest honey i'm just holding it for a friend...............................

 

Have done that a few times

 

Went to go move the bike from its parking spot to the garage today. Opened up my cupboard where I keep the keys and....no keys, just my spare. Well, I probably just left them in my other jeans the last time I was working on the bike. Grab the spare, head out front.... the keys are in the bike.

The keys - including a house key and my shed key - were in the ignition. And had been for over a week. With the bike parked outside, next to the street...

this is how bikes become missing bikes.

I am really, really.....reallly lucky I still have a bike. And that I haven't had all my belongings pilfered from the house while at school or work.

 

Float needles....it's always the float needles not shutting the fuel off for one reason or another. The petcock is only 1/2 of the problem.

 

I pulled my engine out of the frame today.. with no intention of working on the bike any time soon. I guess I just wanted to store my bike in pieces so I have a bigger challenge when i go to put it back together in a few months.

 

Almost bought some parts from eBay today....

 

Well this wasn't today, it was a couple weekends ago.
The Seca hadn't been on the road for nearly a year. I did some work last spring and it was all done and ready to go, but this year my riding was all about buying a DR650, outfitting it as an adventure tourer, and riding up to Deadhorse Alaska. So I never bothered to insure the Seca (insurance is expensive around here). But I couldn't let the entire year go by without riding the beloved Seca so I got a weekend's insurance and took it out for a spin. The bike ran great, the latest mods were working perfectly, it was a beautiful fall day and a lovely twisty coastal road. Life is good.
After about an hour and a half I decided to stop at a cafe, and as I turned in I noticed a funny clunk coming from somewhere around the front wheel. The first thing I saw was that there was no cotter pin on the axle nut. Crap! The nut was completely loose and had backed off a quarter inch or so. And then I noticed that both pinch bolts were also loose and the axle was free to slide back and forth. Double Crap! Apparently I hadn't tightened things up after I had the front wheel off last spring. I tried not to think about what could have happened if the axle had gone AWOL on that twisty road.

Fortunately all the nuts and bolts were still there - nothing had fallen off on the road. And I was also glad that I was riding alone that day so there were no witnesses to my stupidity.
Well, no harm done and no witnesses, I'll just get out my tool bag and tighten everything up. Except (Crap again!) my tool bag wasn't under the seat where it should be, it was on the workbench back home. So all I could do was tighten everything up as much as I could with my fingers, and ride very slowly and carefully to the nearest hardware store to buy a crescent wrench and tighten everything up in the parking lot. A helpful motorcyclist saw me doing it and came over to offer assistance so I didn't get away without a witness after all.
All's well that ends well, and you can be sure that I'll be a lot more diligent with my pre-trip inspections from now on.

 

Welp. I get to post to this twice this week.

I received some hand guards that I got cheap on amazon a month and a half ago. I decided to slap them on because "this should be quick and easy and then ill work on cleaning the garage"....right...

I started putting the right one on and the internal tension nut on the guards mounting harware slipped off inside my handlebar. Its plastic (look, theyre cheap parts, I knew when I ordered them) so i couldnt fish it out with a magnet.

Leaned my bike over to shake it out of the handlebar and.... (you know whats coming here... Just wait for it)

Dropped my bike.

Bent my brake lever over 45 degrees in the middle and snapped the ball on the end off. Tried to vise press the handle back into shape, but it snapped and now i have no brake lever. To be fair, the lever had obviously been bent amd reshaped a few times by POs, so im sure metal fatigue was the culprit and replacement was on my mind anyway.

So i guess this gives me an excuse to buy new levers as part of my rebuild this winter. The really stupid part was my roomate was like 20 ft away, and I could have just asked him to help me lean the bike. Also, the handguards look way too new and shiny... Completely out of place on my bike.

 

Can't imagine the carnage if you had things go wrong blasting up the island highway, makes all my past scares come to mind.

 

I love this thread, it gives me hope. We need to start scoring from 1.0 to 10.0 , maybe make it a weekly Olympic Event, cause we're all such winners ! ! !

 

I've made that mistake before - only to get brake pads that didn't fit my specific model XJ550. Now Len is the go to for parts.

 

Bought caltec brake pads....wrong pads off of eBay...finally got correct pads local.Next time I'll order from xj4ever lesson learned

 

IT wasn't today - in fact I think it has been about a month or so. Owning a neglected farm property takes a lot of a guys free time away . . . . (oh and I got's me a real job too!)

I digress, the stupid:
Built a homemade two bottle manometer; tried it out and was having issues getting a decent balance from it and obviously un-synched my carbs while trying to balance things. . . . sat for awhile while other projects and family health issues stacked up and over the XJ.
Went back to it about a week ago and figure that since I have it screwed up let's check valve clearances, colortune and then resynch. Valve Clearances = good; colortune = good, synch = WTF? things are really screwy. Went to bed Saturday night and had an Ah Ha moment. When I built my manometer I put a smaller diameter tube connecting the two bottles together - a restrictor if you will. Why? I don't know, maybe because I though I was smarter than the average bear?? So Sunday AM I get up and swap in a larger diameter hose for connecting the two bottles and hooked it up - PRESTO! Now when I turn the synch screw(s) fluid levels actually change (prior to this it took forever for any fluid movement to occur).

So the stupid - don't over think the two bottle manometer - using ATF you don't need no stinking 'restrictor'. Putting a smaller diameter tube in between the two bottles slows down the fluid exchange sooo much that by the time you notice it you have already adjusted too far in the wrong direction. DOH!

 

The restrictors go between the bottles and the carbs. They dampen the pulsing so you can get a more accurate reading.

 

No problem with pulsing - she just purrs.

 

You say that like its a problem.....Only 25? I have them stashed all over the place.....lol

 

Awwww, where's your sense of a challenge!?!?! Wait two years before starting to re-assemble.

 

Just had our second child today.. It may very well be two years.