Topic: Quick poll for all you builders out there

[Helo229]

Argh... It's a joke poll, I think. I just spent last night touching up all the paint on the frame and engine from when I installed it on my own (hooray! only 2 crushed fingers in the process!), spent a decent amount of time trying to lace my rear wheel only to discover the reason it just don't work is because the jackass I bought my HD 16" spokes from on e-gay gave me the wrong ones - and, while I was toying with that little fiasco, my buddy laced the front wheel, only he did them backwards (left side to right and vice versa) and decided to tighten them down with my screw gun while I was inside sending an email off to the rear spoke seller. When I came back out he had realized his mistake and was trying to remove them, only the bit kept slipping off the nipples and gouging the newly powdercoated rims. Which is fine, it's on the inside of the wheel, I don't care what it looks like... Except for all the metal burrs there now that I have to sand.

Yes, yes, I know, I'm just #$%*ing and being a baby about it all. But, this is only my second season of owning a bike, and last year I hardly got to ride because the bike was garbage, I've spent about 2k on it thus far and haven't riden it once this year, it's my first foray into a project this big, and I'm about 50% sure the bike isn't going to start once it is together anyways because Jesus hates me. *sigh*

Off to the garage to push on through!

[Aaron J Williams]

I feel your pain, lacing wheels has always been my least favorite part of building a bike. Come to think of it, polishing wheels sux too!

[ieism]

I'm pretty sure Jezus hates me more than he hates you.

[fuzzybutt]

i think about kicking my bike over onto it's side, pouring gasolina all over it and lighting the bastid up several times i day right now i swear. the little stuff is just eating me up.

[jesus freek]

Just this afternoon I felt that urge to do this!! I cant get mine to completely turn over. If I had hair I would have pulled it all out.There is my arms.........................

[okie]

I don't get mad at the bike.  I save all of my anger for the stupid @$$ previous owners, and, to a lesser degree,  the slimeball parts sellers on eBay, or the UPS man who doesn't bring my stuff.  The previous owner is always an unwashed redneck named (at least in my mind) Billy-Bob.  He should have all of his tools confiscated and they should be melted down to make a doorstop. Billy-Bob doesn't really have bad intent.  He is just ignorant of acceptable workmanship standards and doesn't understand why he shouldn't cut the exhaust header on the 305 Super Hawk so he can install the Harley Davidson 883 muffler on it more easily.   It isn't the bike's fault.  It escaped and found refuge in my garage at the first opportunity.    You just wouldn't beleive the tales the bikes tell me about the devious things the previous owner did to them.  I've heard stories about 1/4-20 bolts, hacksaws and even torture with cutting torches.  Try to cut the bike a little bit of slack and remember that it probably came from a dis-functional home before you rescued it.  It isn't the bike's fault.

[Helo229]

Ok, I just double checked the poll... 6 of you aren't Carpy. And if you are, then you have some serious free time with all those clones running around, so get out to my garage and finish my bike for me.

[kghost]

I don't get mad at the bike.  I save all of my anger for the stupid @$$ previous owners, and, to a lesser degree,  the slimeball parts sellers on eBay, or the UPS man who doesn't bring my stuff.  The previous owner is always an unwashed redneck named (at least in my mind) Billy-Bob.  He should have all of his tools confiscated and they should be melted down to make a doorstop. Billy-Bob doesn't really have bad intent.  He is just ignorant of acceptable workmanship standards and doesn't understand why he shouldn't cut the exhaust header on the 305 Super Hawk so he can install the Harley Davidson 883 muffler on it more easily.   It isn't the bike's fault.  It escaped and found refuge in my garage at the first opportunity.    You just wouldn't beleive the tales the bikes tell me about the devious things the previous owner did to them.  I've heard stories about 1/4-20 bolts, hacksaws and even torture with cutting torches.  Try to cut the bike a little bit of slack and remember that it probably came from a dis-functional home before you rescued it.  It isn't the bike's fault.

Amen Preach on brother Okie

[jesus freek]

Oh yeah I'm not much a fan of Carpy as I am of Benjie. I like oreo's tooo.

[754]

I never found it hard.. found it fun though..

 laced my first motorcycle wheel at 16 or so, but had done bicycle ones before I think..

 but I grew up in a different time, read a lot, had a large magazine collection, travelled a lot and got to see wide varieties of bikes.  We had no internet, and a lot of us formed a plan as to what we were trying to do BEFORE we started..

 Also did not skimp on tools to do certain things..ended up with a machine shop, instead of riding bikes all the time, but at least I can do a lot of my own work and build new stuff & try out ideas..

 Finally will get back to working on my bikes soon..

[Hush]

I'm sure Jesus loves you, he probably even loves the idiot low life inbred previous owner of my bike!
Who would remove half the wiring because he didn't know what it did?
Who would paint the engine with something akin to toffee that melts everytime the poxy float jets jam wide open and flood my garage with expensive $2.12 a litre 95 octane?
Who would remove a perfectly good set of CB650 2 into 1 exhausts (the only ones in existence this side of the equator) just before he sold the bike to me because he wanted them for a "project"!!!!!!!!
I'll give him flaming project!
The ugly set of 4 into 1's hanging under my bike like a set of tits on a bull and just as useless, make the bike unrideable....I'm going to have to remove the bluddy centre stand just to be able to corner!
Fume......vent......fume.....ah that feels sooo much better, blood pressure nearing normal....now where were we?

[troppo]

Maybe get friendly with one of your local exhaust blokes hush, offer him his costs and a few cartons, he may be able to do a reasonable copy set for you

[Hush]

Soos has a spare set I can have if I can fugure out how to get em here from Utah?

[Helo229]

I never found it hard.. found it fun though..

 laced my first motorcycle wheel at 16 or so, but had done bicycle ones before I think..

 but I grew up in a different time, read a lot, had a large magazine collection, travelled a lot and got to see wide varieties of bikes.  We had no internet, and a lot of us formed a plan as to what we were trying to do BEFORE we started..

 Also did not skimp on tools to do certain things..ended up with a machine shop, instead of riding bikes all the time, but at least I can do a lot of my own work and build new stuff & try out ideas..

 Finally will get back to working on my bikes soon..

Showing our age? 
It's not as though I'm some young punk who's never handled a tool before, and not exactly that I don't know what I'm doing... But I'm 24 and working on a bike that's 31. Somewhere between the factory stamp on my bike and my first set of wrenches some might say "The world has moved on," if it do ye fine. I never touched a carburator before this bike. I've installed performance fuel mapping chips, bridged the voltage on air mass sensors to trick the ecu into thinking it was breathing mountain air by the gallon and add more fuel. Bike work is archaic compared to what I'm used to. There's no hooking up my voltmeter or code scanner to the ECU for a .5 second diagnostic of what's wrong - just a whole lot of check this, then this, then this....Alot of the work I've done in the past has been on cars, where there's no shortage of places to hide wiring, aftermarket parts, etc, but on a bike everything you do is visible. As for the spokes, they were simple enough, but my major complaint was that a) somebody screwed my on ebay out of $45 for the wrong spokes, and b) my good-intentioned buddy gouged my freshly powder coated rims.

I had 2 plans for my bike, and scrapped the first one because it was a bit more than I knew I could tackle first time around, but the second I've more or less stuck to rather than cut corners. And, for all my ranting, I do enjoy working on my bike, but like everyone else, I occassionally hit a wall - the day I started this post was one of them - and for what it's worth, I just needed to hear other people rant about the problems they have going on to get my spirits back up and remind me that it is hard goings to make something great out of a pile of rust.

[754]

Take a breather, wait a day or three, & try again..

 it is just a machine, put together by other people.. how hard can that be...?

[KB02]

I'm about $1800 into my engine right now. Once I get that done. I'll start in on the rest of the bike. I voted in the 1-25 range because I'm sure those days are coming.

Honestly I had one of those days on my old F1 when I was trying to set the timing with my Dyna. I felt it would be the fairest thing to do for the poor bike as I was rotating the engine backwards while trying to static time it. 

[kghost]

I have only thrown things across the shop twice in the last year 

I feel thats quite an accomplishment. 

[ieism]

I stopped counting how much the project would end up costing.....because I was afraid of the final amount.
But my bank decided to send me a nice overview of all the amounts I spend on motorcycle parts the last 3 months. It adds up. Nice one.