When the world comes to it's senses and makes me Emperor...

Downeaster

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and Dictator for Life, the FIRST thing I'm going to do is make it mandatory that anyone who aspires to be a Designer or Engineer spend a minimum of 5 years working in a shop repairing whatever it is they want to design.

It would stop SO much stupidity.

Daughter dropped her Bolt a couple of weeks ago, broke the right front turn signal.

New one came in today and I unpacked it and my first thought was "wrong part". To be sure, I went down to the shed where the bike is stored for the Winter and looked. Nope, right part, monumentally stupid design.

Every bike I've ever owned, and I've owned a few, the procedure for replacing a turn signal is something like:

1. Remove the headlight from the shell. 2 screws, sometimes just one.
2. Unhook 1 or 2 bullet connectors, depending on how the signal is grounded.
3. Take off one nut.
4. Remove signal.

This little gem is a single plastic casting that clamps around the fork tube. Under the top triple clamp. Which means I'll need, at a minimum, to remove the front wheel and drop the right fork tube down in the clamps to slide the signal off over the top.

Haven't looked at all the details yet (dark in the shed...) but I may very well have to deal with caliper, brake plumbing and ABS sensor/wiring while I'm at it.

Not to mention getting everything aligned again once I put it back together.

I'd pay good money to slap the stupid out of the moron that designed that. All that would be left would be teeth and a pocket protector...
 
...and don't forget "planned obsolescence". Why can't anybody make something (especially if it's good) for more than a few years anymore? They just make the new ones cheaper and flimsier. How many of the new motorcycles out there today (a few exceptions) are going to be around in 40 years?
 
Wow....31 years - that things nearly as old as....

....me.

On the matter of DEs daughters Yamha Bolt - the problem is not so much with the engineers (although his “hands-on” solution is correct IMO), as with the cost-nazis and the styling crowd (known in Detroit as the Beauty Police).

Between them, those two mobs of dumb-buggers could complicate and mess-up a PB&J sandwich.
 
Take a sophisticated machine, like the Lockheed L1011. They hang a bolt in space and build an entire airplane around it! Never mind that said bolt has to be periodically removed. I feel your pain.
:cussing:

l1011.jpg
 
- - - This little gem is a single plastic casting that clamps around the fork tube. Under the top triple clamp. Which means I'll need, at a minimum, to remove the front wheel and drop the right fork tube down in the clamps to slide the signal off over the top. - - -

Hi downeaster,
betcha that won't be the only time the Bolt gets dropped either so you gotta look forward to another frustrating teardown.
Or you could say "F**k this for a game of soldiers." cut that frail plastic eye into a C-shape that's just hooked enough to snap into place,
make a couple of slots in the plastic or perhaps use pop rivets to attach a stainless steel hose clamp that'll grip the fork tube.
 
BTW, replacing that turn signal was every bit as much of a pain in the posterior as I though it would be, though for slightly different reasons.

I was able to pick the front of the bike up with my overhead electric winch and tuck a couple of pieces of 4x6 under the frame rails and get the front wheel off the ground enough to remove it. Bike was actually fairly stable on the blocking but I left the winch and sling attached just in case Murphy decided to drop in for a beer.

Did have to remove the front wheel and drop the right fork leg, No ABS so there was that, and the caliper and plumbing were on the left leg, so no problems there. Dropped the front wheel and fender, loosened the clamps and slid the fork down and...WTF? Another bolt?

Remove the headlight and pry a bunch of wiring out of the way and there's an allen bolt screwed into the bottom of the upper triple clamp holding the signal housing from rotating around the fork tube. MISERABLE esso bee to get at.

And, of course, there was .000000001 inches of slack in the wiring so I could pivot the signal stalk around so I could get at the latch on the connector.

But, it's done, I still have all my fingers and most of my blood, and (as far as I know) nobody called the cops over some of the things that got said while doing it. I did NOT use my indoor voice...
 
Oh dear me....:yikes:
I'm mellowing a little (most would say VERY little) in my old age.

There was a time not all that long ago that when I got a good mad on, the air would turn blue, little old ladies would faint dead away, children would be frightened out of a year's growth, birds would fall out of the sky and teenagers would learn several new words and some procreative practices heretofore deemed improbable, if not outright impossible.
 
And speaking of calling the cops...

I did actually get a visit from the local constable one time after someone overheard me applying some of my finest verbal lubrication to a particularly recalcitrant project. He fully understood, having a fairly impressive vocabulary himself, but suggested I either keep it down or close the garage door and preferably both...
 
some of my finest verbal lubrication to a particularly recalcitrant project.
When I was teachin'.... I used to hold a very informal class on "verbal lubrication." 'Till I got called on the carpet by the headmaster. Non-mechanics just don't seem to get it's usefulness.... ;)
 
My wife had a hard time getting used to my little tantrums.

I explained to her that I could let it all out by yelling and swearing and throwing tools, or I could hold it all in, blow a major vein and leave her a penniless widow.

I think it was the "penniless" part that convinced her...

Seriously, I pitch a fit, get over it, calm down and get on with my day all in the space of 5 minutes or less.

Usually...
 
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