Hey guys, I'm posting a story which should make you laugh or at least shake your head and say, "what a moron." hopefully, it'll also give a reminder to people to not do what i did. recently, as some of you might remember, i installed a 57mm termi and DP ECU. I also installed a PC3. When I took the bike out for a ride Thursday night, I noticed at idle the dashboard seemed to be flickering a little. Since it was dusk, I thought maybe it had to do with the sensor not picking up enough "lack of light" to set the thing at a constant brightness. Well, I noticed the same thing last night too when I started the bike for my ride home from work. Now, when the bike was being ridden (i.e. over 3k rpm) it was fine. When i was at a light and at idle, the dash had this irregular flickering to it. When I got home last night, I took the fairing off and wouldn't you know? The screw to the negative battery post was loose. Let this be a lesson. Make sure the battery connections are tight. I took it out for a ride today and what a shock, it ran like a top.
__________________
Drinking Fountains are shorter than they used to be.
Being acutely awate that mid 80's goldwings are notorious for stator failures, I fitted a voltmeter to the pig several years ago. This summer on a long ride and about 400 miles from home I noticed the system volts varying and lower than the 14.7 it should be. Praising myself for the gage I turned around and headed straight home with painful visions of pushing that sow once it quit. I was going to order a stator the next day. But first I checked the continutity of the stator between phases and to ground. Good. Ok, run it and check the AC. Hmmm 90 volts. All is well.
Dig deeper, check this, check that, dig some more, battery ok, connections good, reg rec ok, check more stuff etc. Hmmm.. 14.7 volts at over 1500 rpm across the battery. The light in my brain went on although dimly. *&$>ing aircraft certified voltmeter. Must be bad. Nope, I forgot to tighten the ground wire on the voltmeter when I installed it.
Forgetting to tighten something could have some real ugly results.
When I work on any of my bikes I always try to do the twice over
to make sure I did not forget to torque those caliper bolts and so on.
How about going into your favorite corner and have the front brake lever fall
off because you forgot to locktite and snug the nut up that holds the
pivot bolt in. I have heard of that happening on the track.
__________________
2008 MV Agusta 312R mono. Black and Silver
2008 Ducati 1098 (Yellow, streatable/doner bike)
2007 Ducati 1098 (Yellow, track only)
2007 GSX-R600 Suzuki (Blue, White and Black, track only)
2004 Ducati 999R Fila (All of them, streetable)
Reminds me of years back on the way home from Indiana and one of the guys notices after dinner his Yamaha is dripping a little oil. He says, that's never happened before and off we go. At the next fuel stop he looks closer and the oil drain plug was in by only one full turn of thread. He had recently changed the oil and forgot to tighten the drain plug. A few more miles and...................
__________________
You bring a Ducati to life, all other bikes you just start.
Buddy of mine and a small group were going out to big bend for a weekend trip.
In prep for the trip he was going to do an oil change on the bike. Turns out
the drain plug was completely un-moveable. In his haste to get the bike
together for the ride, he aborted the oil change. Turns out he forgot
to screw the fill plug in completely and it flew off in the middle of the road
about 100-150 miles away. After about 10 miles and a loss off about 1-1.5
quarts of oil I pull him over as I see oil all over his leg (and 1/2 the tire.)
Lucky for him he didnt dump the bike. (I had spots of oil all over my bike
from drips.
In all luck - I remember seeing something kick up from his bike 5 miles back...
rode back looking for his fill plug. Lucky for him (1:100 at least) I literally
run over the drain plug in my searches in the middle of the road. Saved us
from having to trailer his bike the remainder of the weekend.
Long story short - check your stuff on the bike often after you do any sort
of servicing.
Years ago I rode my old 1986 Ninja 1000r from Michigan to Colorado and back. At my first gas stop I discovered my starter clutch was slipping but decided to continue the trip. Replacing the starter clutch involves splitting the cases on that model and I was meeting friends in Colorado. I spent the whole trip looking for hills to park on so I could bump start it if needed. On the way home after two weeks of riding (and bump starting) I remembered I just changed the oil the night before I left and was using synthetic oil for the first time. Got home and changed back to non-synthetic oil and problem was solved.
I had a Ninja 600 when I was a teen I went to change the valve cover gaskets. Little did I know they have groovy guide pins that fit just loose enough and are just the right diameter... to fall down into the #2 cylinder. If I tried all day long I don't think I could have dropped it down the spark plug hole after a couple million tries. Murphy was hard at work that day.
Now I know I was an idiot for pulling the plugs forst but oh well, I got to learn my lesson. Since I wasn't about to rip my brand new bike apart I did the next best thing and stepped up MacGyver-mode. I ripped apart a refrigerator magnet, cut to shape, and taped it to a length of wire. I spent the next 4.5 hours playing the fish the pin out of the cylinder game. What a maroon!!
Thats funny! After a great ride I pulled into a gas station to fill up my MV. Opened the cap, while still seated on the bike, pulled out my wallet and my small Safeway club card slid out of my wallet right into the tank. That wasn't the bonehead move of the day though. I then proceeded to fill the tank! I don't know I was thinking, must've been on cloud 9 because of the great ride. The tank on the MV is 5.5 gallons. Rode home, drained the tank of the 5 remaining gallons. All the while thinking the gas had disolved it and it was going to ruin my filter or pump or both. McGyver'd some chewing gum on a stick to get the card out. Let me say gum and gasoline residue don't mix very well. It took numerous tries. Needless to say I never open the tank until after I've swiped my credit card at the pump.
__________________
"It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt." Abraham Lincoln
Why I'm a moron and you can learn from it
My 916 was a Horrid Blood Sucking Bitch.
After a great ride I pulled into a gas station to fill up my MV. Opened the cap, while still seated on the bike, pulled out my wallet and my small Safeway club card slid out of my wallet right into the tank.
I was thinking, must've been on cloud 9 because of the great ride. The tank on the MV is 5.5 gallons. Rode home, drained the tank of the 5 remaining gallons. All the while thinking the gas had disolved it and it was going to ruin my filter or pump or both. McGyver'd some chewing gum on a stick to get the card out. Let me say gum and gasoline residue don't mix very well. It took numerous tries. Needless to say I never open the tank until after I've swiped my credit card at the pump.
Linear Mode
