Your Dumbest Bike Maintenance Moment

Was lubing chain outside my house with no stand and no helper, so roll along, squirt, roll along, squirt. 3 or 4 times along I do not notice my side stand is catching the floor and is retracting slightly each time as I am pushing the bike forwards.

Sods law, couldnt pick the bike up myself and all my immediate neighbours were out lol.

Originally Posted by hongman

Was lubing chain outside my house with no stand and no helper, so roll along, squirt, roll along, squirt. 3 or 4 times along I do not notice my side stand is catching the floor and is retracting slightly each time as I am pushing the bike forwards.

Sods law, couldnt pick the bike up myself and all my immediate neighbours were out lol.

top tip ...... roll bike backwards

[5hort5]

oh dear, well the SV is a project bike and tbh I have had no experience before in any mechanics, soooooo ......

• Fixing the oil leak on the engine cover, over tightened a bolt and snapped it off, **** myself but it came out fine with mole grips.
  
• Drilling the rear calliper pins out, slipped and drilled through the calliper. That cost a calliper from a forum member.
  
• Oh, and then there was the break cables that were the wrong size
  
• running like a dog because I hadn't put the airbox on correctly, again!
  
• Changing the CCT on the front cylinder, knocked a wire off the coil so the front cylinder stopped working along with the rev count, thought I had broke the front cylinder - Forum to the rescue again and one wire plugged back on.
  
• Fitting heated grips managed to super glue the grip half way up, my fingers together and the tube to my fingers! Two hours later with my fingers in nail vanish remover managed to get all the glue off and then fixed the grips with help from oxford.
  
• Changing the Reg/Rec left a lead off and the battery went flat on the M6, after dodging traffic from the fast line to the hard shoulder spent a couple of hours waiting for the AA. I just didn't plug the wire back in correctly!

Yer, I think that's about it, only had this bike for a year and a bit, plenty more time to blow it up!

[northwind]

I have never done anything stupid to the SV. Certainly didn't reach for the aerosol can of rubbing compound to remove a tiny wee scratch on the tank and accidentally pick up some black hammerite, oh no.

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by mr speirs

what happened was sorta my fault but the embarrassing bit was done by the wonder legend which is binky.

Went round his to change fork oil seals on grimey, or the other one i forget...after carefully measuring the air gap binky stood up with the fork in his hand.

It was then that i noticed there was oil leaking out the bottom as i had forgotten to tighten up the damping rod bolt. I told binky who then thought 'oh ****' and promptly turned the entire fork upside down, emptying the entire contents of the fork onto my toolbox.

quality

[Spanner Man]

Good morning all.


You should see some of the things I get to sort out, after a little owner participation.

My top three.

The ZX7r owner who fitted new pads & complained of a grinding noise. He's fitted the pads the wrong way round....3 new discs & pads later.

The VFR750 owner who tried to adjust his chain by undoing the big hub nut on the left. He forgot to unstake the nut, & took the threads clean off the end of the axle.....One secondhand axle later. His biggest complaint was that he'd spent money on a 46mm socket, & 3/4 drive breaker bar.

The chap who watched me fit bearings to his brothers FJ1200 front wheel. He asked me why I used heat. I explained that it helped make the bearings an easier fit because of expansion.
Two weeks later he had a go at the same job on his GT550. He managed to melt the wheel! The bearing recess was the shape of a teardrop! Apparently, he thought that because I use a propane torch that runs off a bottle he'd better leave his DIY blowlamp on for longer. So, he propped the wheel against the garage wall, set the blowlamp on it, & went & had a cup of tea.
It was hard not to laugh as I explained that his blowlamp was just as hot as mine

Some folks shouldn't be allowed to own spanners!


Cheers.

[andrewsmith]

I think we have a winner.

about 10 years ago I was coming home from work the chain on my Africa twin snapped, luckily no damage - got the bike recovered home and set about replacing the chain and sprockets with a spare set I had in the garage, once it was all done I went to replace the feed tube from the scotoiler as it had ripped off the end when the chain snapped, I couldnt find a set of snips so went and got a kitchen knife to cut off the old cable ties......
as I was squatting by the swingarm cutting off the (thick) cable ties using all my stregnth, the cable snapped and I stuck the knife into my thigh right up to the handle......
A trip to A & E and 5 stitches later........
a week later I hit a car head on near Stranraer and broke my shoulder and collar bone, got home went to A & E to be treated by the same nurse....

reached for the brake cleaner to clean the disks and picked my identicall can of white grease..

knob..

aged 18 replacing kwaka zxr400 front sprocket- forgot to put circlip back on in front of sprocket, few weeks later(dont know how it lasted that long) whilst going round a country lane left hander, sprocket comes off, me and bike slide across road missing an on coming car by not a lot at all, me and bike end up in field, bike gets sold cheap and i have clicky elbow still to this day, armour in leathers done its job thou. Due to mothers wishes i didnt ride again till last year when bought the sv aged 26.