Hey guys....just need to vent for a minute here to some people who understand.
I will start by saying, Thursday I pulled the bike out of storage for the winter and started summerizing it.
Friday, I put a new clutch in and new carbs on, because it was slipping at the end of last season and my bs28's are corroded like a mofo. It initially still slipped, but after the plates soaked over night, worked itself out. Besides that a screw driver slipped on me, and impaled my hand so deep that I damaged the tendons running to my middle and pointer finger, luckily grandpa was in town (an ex paramedic) and he stitched me up.
So a few hours later i decided to do a test run with the new clutch (i knew they would be but...) the carbs were jumping all over the place on the rpm spectrum and being finicky and generally uncooperative....and leaking gas from the "T" joint that splits the gas between carbs. I just wanted to get one run in to see if the clutch had been fixed so I cleaned off the bike and shoved some paper towel up in the carbs lol. Well I get going down the road and all of a sudden I hear WUUUPAAAHHAHAHA and then my exhaust was suddenly louder.....looked down and.....see ya muffler... the damn thing was tumbling down the road behind me as though to say "Oh your clutch still slips? Your carbs are leaking?....meh might as well bail on you too then!"
So I go back, get the muffler, and weld the sucker on today. Well i finally get every thing all tied up and decide to ride up to my shop to get my feeler gauges so i can do a valve adjustment tomorrow.....worst decision I made all weekend.
On the way there the highway speed is 65MPH....so i'm cruisin along when for some reason I decide to look at my rear tire just out of instinct. Sure enough I see my axle slowly spinning its way out of the rear rim! I immediately start praying, and pull over....luckily the nut was still on the other end, holding on by 2 threads. I always have some tools, so I was able to get it pretty snug, but not comfortably tight, and then stole the front axle's cotter pin to make sure that sucker wasn't gonna come out. I figured I could see the front axle if that one was gonna come loose on me.
My destination was about a half hour away and as I pull off the highway onto the shop's road I look down at my engine to make sure the carb leak hadn't come back....to my surprise the thing was COVERED in oil....and my first thought was NOOO the head gasket must have gone!
....wrong.
I drive the 2 blocks left to my shop and immediately shut the bike off. What I found, was my cam chain adjuster had somehow unthreaded the entire way out of the engine and was just sitting half in, half out while oil was shooting out of that hole. Checked the oil and it was luckily still in the safe zone, so all I hope really happened was the thing ran for a few blocks with a loose cam chain.
As i'm wiping the bike down some old lady sneaks up behind me and in a squawking kinda yelp yells "HEY!" from about two feet behind me and scares the bajeezus out of me. I jumped nearly out of my skin, bump the bike and down she goes....broken brake lever....
Then my buddy comes with my trailer and we discover that my bike is too low to roll right onto it....so we proceed to try and pick it up and get it over the hump....well he apparently cannot lift much and we pulled off and streched out the kickstand spring in the process...now that's junk too.
All in all i'd chalk this weekend up to an epic failure...but....i'm not dead.... and my engine didn't seize up on me...on top of that my clutch spacers I made worked perfectly, the new plates fixed themselves and the bike (for the few hours it was) wass running better than it ever has.
I'm not sure if this is my bike's way of punishing me for living in MN and keeping her locked up all winter or what....but right now i'm just gonna step back...have a beer and just let my brain think about all of this for a bit before doing anything....
But lets just say this bike is getting a complete look over before it leaves the garage again!
This has been one of those weekends where there's really nothing left to do but laugh at it.
I will start by saying, Thursday I pulled the bike out of storage for the winter and started summerizing it.
Friday, I put a new clutch in and new carbs on, because it was slipping at the end of last season and my bs28's are corroded like a mofo. It initially still slipped, but after the plates soaked over night, worked itself out. Besides that a screw driver slipped on me, and impaled my hand so deep that I damaged the tendons running to my middle and pointer finger, luckily grandpa was in town (an ex paramedic) and he stitched me up.
So a few hours later i decided to do a test run with the new clutch (i knew they would be but...) the carbs were jumping all over the place on the rpm spectrum and being finicky and generally uncooperative....and leaking gas from the "T" joint that splits the gas between carbs. I just wanted to get one run in to see if the clutch had been fixed so I cleaned off the bike and shoved some paper towel up in the carbs lol. Well I get going down the road and all of a sudden I hear WUUUPAAAHHAHAHA and then my exhaust was suddenly louder.....looked down and.....see ya muffler... the damn thing was tumbling down the road behind me as though to say "Oh your clutch still slips? Your carbs are leaking?....meh might as well bail on you too then!"
So I go back, get the muffler, and weld the sucker on today. Well i finally get every thing all tied up and decide to ride up to my shop to get my feeler gauges so i can do a valve adjustment tomorrow.....worst decision I made all weekend.
On the way there the highway speed is 65MPH....so i'm cruisin along when for some reason I decide to look at my rear tire just out of instinct. Sure enough I see my axle slowly spinning its way out of the rear rim! I immediately start praying, and pull over....luckily the nut was still on the other end, holding on by 2 threads. I always have some tools, so I was able to get it pretty snug, but not comfortably tight, and then stole the front axle's cotter pin to make sure that sucker wasn't gonna come out. I figured I could see the front axle if that one was gonna come loose on me.
My destination was about a half hour away and as I pull off the highway onto the shop's road I look down at my engine to make sure the carb leak hadn't come back....to my surprise the thing was COVERED in oil....and my first thought was NOOO the head gasket must have gone!
....wrong.
I drive the 2 blocks left to my shop and immediately shut the bike off. What I found, was my cam chain adjuster had somehow unthreaded the entire way out of the engine and was just sitting half in, half out while oil was shooting out of that hole. Checked the oil and it was luckily still in the safe zone, so all I hope really happened was the thing ran for a few blocks with a loose cam chain.
As i'm wiping the bike down some old lady sneaks up behind me and in a squawking kinda yelp yells "HEY!" from about two feet behind me and scares the bajeezus out of me. I jumped nearly out of my skin, bump the bike and down she goes....broken brake lever....
Then my buddy comes with my trailer and we discover that my bike is too low to roll right onto it....so we proceed to try and pick it up and get it over the hump....well he apparently cannot lift much and we pulled off and streched out the kickstand spring in the process...now that's junk too.
All in all i'd chalk this weekend up to an epic failure...but....i'm not dead.... and my engine didn't seize up on me...on top of that my clutch spacers I made worked perfectly, the new plates fixed themselves and the bike (for the few hours it was) wass running better than it ever has.
I'm not sure if this is my bike's way of punishing me for living in MN and keeping her locked up all winter or what....but right now i'm just gonna step back...have a beer and just let my brain think about all of this for a bit before doing anything....
But lets just say this bike is getting a complete look over before it leaves the garage again!
This has been one of those weekends where there's really nothing left to do but laugh at it.
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