Cold sweat moments

There is this particular Bridge across a river right in the middle of a fantastic windy road in The Snowy Mountains. It's a particularly long wooden bridge, long enough to rate an up gear change and acceleration mid bridge as it looks like the road continues straight. EXCEPT that straight bridge exit led into a dirt track to a picnic area with a really thick timber beam across said track at one mitre height. In reality, the bitumen exit suddenly turns 90deg left. It's a cunning trap that from the broken plastic bike bits around has caught out plenty over time. I was following someone who has an acute attraction to WOODEN Structures. I am watching as he sails straight, while I am tipping in left. He must have noticed the Timber beam last second and gently slide down the dirt under it. Not much damage but it made a huge impression and diverted my attention from where I was heading. All it took was a tiny bit of throttle mid bridge. It was one of the thankfully few times I witnessed people crash, and not just little slides off, I am taking O SHIT and my fingers get crossed. Thankfully it's usually minor injuries and the ride continues. Only once with the ultimate consequences, that was out the front of a job I was on. That one was the one I would prefer to forget.
 
After pulling the 1200 apart I found bits of cam chain rollers in the sump. Then checked the chain and sure enough 2 rollers had missing bits. It was a Regina chain.
 
Thomas aus LAU said:
<snip>.
At home in the workshop there was still the unused new oil, the oil filter cover and a bowl with the old oil.

Conclusion:
Never interrupt an important work. If necessary, leave a note like e.g. "remove before flight".
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Not quite so bad, but ...

I have been known to start pouring in the new oil before replacing the oil filter.

Stop laughing, you at the back.
 
A mate was using one of those vertical syphon type oil pumps in a 25litre oil can and left it in overnight, it spread a lovely 50mm layer of 50w oil that completely covered his garage floor. It was a nightmare to clean up.
 
My late father always blamed me for his Mk1 Guzzi Le Mans seizing when he rode it to my place and I took it out for a short ride. The oil level was off the dipstick and I should have checked it before riding. He was always a dreadful maintainer of vehicles.
 
I now put a piece of tape over the ignition switch for two events - oil change and disc lock usage !

There’s two 90 degree bends in Kingston on a one way system going through the first one day too quickly on a Yam RD 400 I over cooked the second to find myself looking at a very high kerb fortunately there was one ramp up which I managed to steer up onto the pavement
 
More than once I have seen someone start filling with new oil having forgotten to replace the drain plug. Clean oil is much easier to clean up.
 
martymoose said:
Tell me more about the different spring clip for the cam chain that Oct sells please
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Unfortunately, OCT can no longer supply these individual retaining rings. They are now using Iwis chains with the associated normal chain locks.

E.g. Regina Chain: The bolt thickness of the chain lock is 3 mm, the groove for securing has a diameter of 2.7 mm and the groove is 0.9 mm wide.
The normal matching circlips are only available in a thickness of 0.4 mm.
The special "Seeger-Greifring" are stronger and are available in the right size: Seeger_Greifring.jpg
I have had very good experiences with it, but I cannot guarantee that it will work that well for you.

By the way - the side with the sharp edges of every locking ring/chain lock must always point outwards!

Thomas aus LAU
 
The fluid that I always spill (always - as in bloody well guaranteed) is brake fluid. No matter how hard I try, I always end up with a puddle on the floor and splashes all over the paint work. It seems to out-fox me every time.
 
I used to have the bikes in the house, no garage so often went into the room where I tinkered in slippers.
I managed to put a slippered foot in a bowl of drained engine oil.

Paul
 
Was riding from Sydney to Adelaide and stopped at Balranald for the night. Did the normal visual inspection and noticed the spring clip on the 630 drive chain was missing. Had some fine wire that I managed to put in the grooves in a figure of eight formation and sealed it with superglue. Lasted for the five hundred kays back home but it was a nervous ride.
 
"Tell me more about the different spring clip for the cam chain that Oct sells please"

I have never bought these from OCT, but I may have the answer, they are basically the same as a normal split link, with one side plate attached to the pins and a loose side plate, what is different is that instead of the spring link to contain the loose side plate, you have two "E" clips, which fit individually over the groove in the pins, this gives a contact point for each clip/pin of 120 degrees, if you look at the usual type, one pin is contacted at under 180 degres in two places (the open end of the clip) and the other has about 300 degrres of contact on one side of the pin. Those "E" clip type retainers are extremely fiddly to fix and the risk of dropping the tiny component down into the bowels of the motor are huge, even if you lay cloth under your work area, just llifting the cloth could loose the dropped clip, (dont do that, pick the dropped item up with a magnet) The usual type work well, I have doizens of the "E" clip type if anyone prefers them. I never did have huge confidence in them
CLEM
 
Haggis said:
The fluid that I always spill (always - as in bloody well guaranteed) is brake fluid. No matter how hard I try, I always end up with a puddle on the floor and splashes all over the paint work. It seems to out-fox me every time.
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Haggis buy a decent sized syringe ! You can remove as well as add gently
 
Sir Sidney Ruffdiamond said:
Haggis buy a decent sized syringe ! You can remove as well as add gently
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tried that, it wrecked the rubber in the syringe in no time, even had the seals in a vacuum brake pump bleeder get wrecked as well, very frustrating as that is what it was bought for, and yes, even more brake fluid on floor, bench, work ramp fingers and clothes, the smell doesn't wash out until several wash cycles are done.

The very worst and most messy of operations for me is forks, if I had a full size bath on a stand and dismantled, serviced, washed, modified etc inside it, I am sure I would still get oil on the ceiling, when the springs come out it is just everywhere, Tom has been modifying late Honda shocks to fit to earlier Honda motocrossers, and he goes to a specialist for the recharging, and the bath method is more or less actually what they do, but its a welded stainless box of similar dimensions, well two actually, one for the intial strip and a second for cleaning the components.
CLEM
 
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Brett NSW showed me a neat trick with drive chain links.. after fitting the spring clip, give it a good bit of black silastic.. takes the vibe out of the link/sideplate as it wears..

:cool:
 
LaverdaIan said:
Brett NSW showed me a neat trick with drive chain links.. after fitting the spring clip, give it a good bit of black silastic.. takes the vibe out of the link/sideplate as it wears..

:cool:
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If you use a spring clip here for racing (as I have always done) you are required to safety wire around the clip onto the side plate, and cover the safety wire with a silicone.
 
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