What the PO did.

gggGary

gggGary

If not now, When?
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Here's the drill; what lame brain "maintenance or improvement" did you find on your XS650?

Just to get things rolling. I traded a Yamaha venture for cash plus an XS750. Note to self; never trade motorcycles in a poorly lit Micky D's parking lot.
Rode the bike 100 miles home and was looking the disaster over the next day. I found the goopy remains where the PO had used a grease gun on the front brake bleeders! Gulp. Yeah, the rest of the bike had lots of similar "maintenance".
 
I have a rotor that somebody used a belt sander on with really coarse paper... let me clarify...alternator rotor. It was destroyed. the po said he "cleaned up where the brushes contact" and put new brushes (from an electric motor) in it.....wonder why it wouldn't charge? arrrrgh!
 
Where do I begin?

Because I'm short on time, and because merely thinking of some of the things that were done to my bike before I got her make me almost physically ill, let me just mention the oil-spewing output shaft seal that, even to my neophyte eyes, appeared to have been replaced with a cold chisel. And then there's the "just twist the wires together and electrical tape over the junction" philosophy that was copiously applied...

Yup... gotta stop... I feel ill now...

TC
 
PO decided it would be cool to remove all of the turn signals, but pulling the wires out of the bullet connectors is much too complicated, so he cut them all an inch away from the connectors. But then he repented and decided to put the signals back on (probably because hand signals are too complicated) in the wrong spots, and twist the wires back together and put electrical tape over them.

Shorties on the stock header pipes interfere with the brake pedal, so the most obvious solution is to pry against the engine case with a pry bar and bend the brake pedal away from the muffler.

Opening the seat with a key is too complicated, so that has to go too.

Oh noes, two of the float bowl screws stripped out, it'll be fine without them I'm sure. I mean there's still 2 left right?!?!!

Two spark plug boots with different resistances improves performance right? :banghead:

Those air filter clips don't look important, I'll just throw those away.
 
I collect and restore Honda 50's, and 70's. I bought a Honda CL-70 a couple years back. The PO said it "wont start". Of course, I pulled the plug to check spark.....The spark plug hole was completly stripped out, and THE PLUG THREADS WERE WRAPPED WITH ABOUT 2 FEET OF TEFLON TAPE!:banghead:
 
gggGary, I thought I'd seen it all, but the grease gun on the bleeder valve is a new one--ROFLMAO!

Some of the worst abuse I've seen was on my current D-model. I bought the machine cheap enough to know there was trouble, but it had good paper and ran well enough to limp it home. The head gasket was pumping oil a little too vigorously to think about anything but replacement, and when I broke down the top end I found the cam installed off-center, with the lobes and rockers looking like they'd been on the coarse wheel of a bench grinder. That tipped me to the overall competence of the PO, so I put the head cover on a sheet of plate glass to check for flatness--yep, he'd tried to fix the oil seep by cranking down on the fasteners over it, and the head cover was FUBAR. Then the carbies--one pilot jet was the right size but the wrong series, and the other PJ was AWOL. I pulled a good engine out of storage and installed it, and the original went to the bench for a few seasons while I planned the mods and gathered the goodies.
 
You think that stuff is crazy, my po cut the whole rear half of the bike off and welded something back that has no swing arm and no place to put shocks. J/K. But I've seen it....
 
pyroman said:
I collect and restore Honda 50's, and 70's. I bought a Honda CL-70 a couple years back. The PO said it "wont start". Of course, I pulled the plug to check spark.....The spark plug hole was completly stripped out, and THE PLUG THREADS WERE WRAPPED WITH ABOUT 2 FEET OF TEFLON TAPE!:banghead:
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LMAO!!! And I thought I was going to have a unique story to tell. CL350... Both holes were stripped and the plugs wrapped with about a half a roll of teflon tape. He didn't think I would look. He sold it to me for $50.
 
Orange RTV to seal everything... And too much of it so it oozed everywhere and looked liked ass. They just "rebuilt" the motor but needless to say if they are dumb enough to use orange RTV, I'm not going to trust that they did anything right.

Using an actual door bell button for the start button.

I've also seen 12ga solid wiring used on more than one bike. The kind you find in romex for wiring your house.

I'm sure there are others that I don't care to remember right now.
 
blew a hole in the case....looks to be about 3 tubes of JB weld in place of the hole now...i cant recall ever reading that among any "quick tips and tricks" section
 
Stone said:
blew a hole in the case....looks to be about 3 tubes of JB weld in place of the hole now...i cant recall ever reading that among any "quick tips and tricks" section
Click to expand...
I think they asked on here what to do and XSLeo said................


Just joshing Leo. :laugh:
 
Painted the fork sliders with silver paint....The bottom of the forks fell apart when i pulled the front wheel off...like no connection between sliders and outer fork tubes (i then decided these were beyond gone and bought a nice clean set off of ebay) Not only was there no oil at all in the forks, there was 8 inch pieces of 3/4 Electrical conduit in them under the springs. :doh:

Oddly enough, the motor/transmission all seem to have had regular maint, (i rebuilt it anyways) and he even covered up the intake and exhaust ports with rubber when he put it away...
 
pyroman said:
I collect and restore Honda 50's, and 70's. I bought a Honda CL-70 a couple years back. The PO said it "wont start". Of course, I pulled the plug to check spark.....The spark plug hole was completly stripped out, and THE PLUG THREADS WERE WRAPPED WITH ABOUT 2 FEET OF TEFLON TAPE!:banghead:
Click to expand...

I did that repair on a mini bike back when I was 13. I was partners in it with one of my best friends. An old Stellar with a Briggs 5 HP. It worked fine til one day we was moving out about 25MPH and the plug let go. Just happens to be pointing straight up. It flew out and hit him square in the forehead. Put a nice hole there. He pushed it back to my house and we decided there wasn't enough tape.

Someday I will tell you the story about how that same minibike gave him the nickname "limpy" that stuck til this very day, almost 40 years ago.
 
LoL , Reading this stuff makes me feel like a rocket scientist.
Worst I ran across was my first dirt bike back in 91. It had a house light switch for a kill switch. I thought no big deal , but later when I went to do a lil work on the motor I found that someone lost most of the original machine screws and replaced them with a random assortment of wood and drywall screws from the junk drawer .
Scary to think - It ran and I rode it.
 
Today while working on the "pumpkin bike" front brake. The rubber cap on the bleeder seemed gummy not that rare then when removing hte bleeder there was a bunch of red gooey stuff... yup a mad greaser had struck again, the PO tried to grease the brake bleeder. I know I have done some dumb things but grease, brakes???
Sir; kindly put down the tools and back away from the bike before I have to shoot you.
Maybe a bike that has been painted green and orange should have been a warning. Actually not too much on this bike has been FUBAR. I think after he grounded the battery to the rubber mounted battery box instead of the frame further work kind of stopped....
 
gggGary said:
Today while working on the "pumpkin bike" front brake. The rubber cap on the bleeder seemed gummy not that rare then when removing hte bleeder there was a bunch of red gooey stuff... yup a mad greaser had struck again, the PO tried to grease the brake bleeder. I know I have done some dumb things but grease, brakes???
Sir; kindly put down the tools and back away from the bike before I have to shoot you.
Maybe a bike that has been painted green and orange should have been a warning. Actually not too much on this bike has been FUBAR. I think after he grounded the battery to the rubber mounted battery box instead of the frame further work kind of stopped....
Click to expand...

That was to keep the battery connections from corroding.:bike:
 
gggGary said:
Today while working on the "pumpkin bike" front brake. The rubber cap on the bleeder seemed gummy not that rare then when removing hte bleeder there was a bunch of red gooey stuff... yup a mad greaser had struck again, the PO tried to grease the brake bleeder. I know I have done some dumb things but grease, brakes???
Sir; kindly put down the tools and back away from the bike before I have to shoot you.
Maybe a bike that has been painted green and orange should have been a warning. Actually not too much on this bike has been FUBAR. I think after he grounded the battery to the rubber mounted battery box instead of the frame further work kind of stopped....
Click to expand...

wow, just wow! :yikes:
 
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