what STUPID thing did you do with your yamaha today?

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.