OMF number please...

I claim a number from KotL for Order of Mechanical Fuckwittedness!

Simple story - I changed the plugs on the GS at the w/e - something I
have been meaning to do for about a year

The job went well - although done in extreme cold inside the horsebox
- about 20 mins from start to finish in good light. Started engine to
check it still worked - yes fine - except (recent) exhaust rattling
and blowing a bit more than I remember - really *must* tighten up that
joint on the 4-into-1...

Monday, got bike out for run to work - hmmm exhaust puttering away
there - can't see obvious blow - save for later.... Bike running fine!

Tuesday - more puttering - possibly worse...? Bike still running fine!

Wednesday - yet more puttering - bike running absolutely fine! - a few
minutes to spare on arrival back home so put bike on side stand for
closer look. Oh sh1t - noise coming from high up engine! Leaky gasket?
- no. Leaky exhaust clamp? - no.

Straightens up to ease back and behold - that plug shouldn't be at
that angle should it? No! Bugger! Crossthreaded the s*d and it is only
part way inserted! Amazing the bike ran normally - presumably the
third cylinder (from the nearside - almost inaccessible inside the
horsebox) was being 'assisted' by the other three!

Moral - always do maintenance - even the quick jobs - in good lighting
with good all round vision. Always do a proper test ride afterwards
and investigate new sounds.

HTH!

<fx: wanders off to try XV instead...>

Chris D

 

IANTKOTL but that doesn't seem to me to represent the high order of
fuckwittery required. Anyone could have done it, not just a complete
idiot.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

Chris N Deuchar wrote:


<snip>

As Ace says, not nearly fuckwitted enough for a number. Must Try Harder.

 

Ace wrote

 

I said _not_ just a complete idiot.


--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

Ace wrote

My mistake, I saw the comma and took it as an implied OR. Carry on.

 

<fx: bows, hangs head in shame etc>
<perks up - old memory...2nd attempt at OMF#>

I used to have a Honda S90 when I was a lad - wonderful machine but
had to sell it in the end due to cash shortage. This was *after*
changing the main big end bearings...

Well they had got rather clattery and one day - coincidentally on the
way home after a failed mission trying to sell the thing to a
Nottingham dealer - they died. Big time. Absolutely solid. Fortunately
I was able to yank the clutch in prior to flying over the handlebars -
unlike in an earlier occasion involving a West Highland White terrier
(RIP).

So, after pushing the bloody thing six miles over Carlton Hill and
back home to Burton Joyce I started to dismantle it. I took the engine
to college in Clifton and completed the job in my student room. (My
cleaner was very tolerant!). I had full use of the engineering
workshops there and spent days (literally!) cutting short pieces of
studding and fitting them with two nuts apiece between the big end
rotating thingies[1] so that I could *undo* the nuts and prize the
whole thing apart. After a total of a whole weeks dismantling work
and elastoplast I took the separated crankshaft and knackered bearing
to another dealer in Nottingham - long since disappeared - and asked
for a new bearing.

The man in the brown coat said, "However did you get that apart - they
are machine press-fitted at 4 tons you know?". I didn't, and told him
so. "Wait there", he said and disappeared behind the shelves that
disappeared into (a) the clouds (b) the haze on the horizon. Three
months later he returned with a mechanical lump that bore a remarkable
resemblance to what I had started with a week earlier. "Here you are",
he said, "Last one. Yours for £10.00".

So, in the end, I paid what seemed like a paltry sum for what I could
have avoided in the suffering of skinned knuckles, screwdriver
stabbings, sprained wrists and bruised toes (it kept flippin out the
vice). I gave (in a remarkably non-aggressive way) the man in the
brown coat the old one as a 'souvenir' - and also so I wouldn't have
to resist the urge to throw it in the canal outside.

That better?

Oh, and the bike - NAU 45 when I bought it from a dealer. [2]
I later found that the 'F' suffix had been omitted. My neighbour
recognised it as a former one of his'un. Ergo, it was no longer an
F'in S90.

Chris D
[1] forgot the technical term
[2] the first mentioned in the tale above