Topic: What's the worst/dumbest thing a PO did to your bike?

[Rigid]

Honda shadow, one front brake pad and mounting plate MIA.  Had the caliper piston hyper-extended to use the remaining pad and the housing to stop the bike.  There is no way to lose a pad on this design, the caliper had to be installed without it. Rotor had aluminum stuck to it, caliper housing was chewed up.  What next?

[Terry in Australia]

I bought a CB750K6 frame and some other parts from a seller in Western Australia a few months ago, when they arrived I wondered why there were spare passenger footpeg hangers in with it until I saw this practical, but ugly, fix:



So with a little measuring and cutting, I was able to right that wrong:



A little welding and grinding, and the frame was ready for powdercoat:



Now on to the next problem, building a complete engine out of spare parts! Cheers, Terry.

[Godffery]

Now THAT'S a propper fix. Grate job Terry!

[-CB-Jamie-]

Picked up 2 550's about two weeks ago and decided to try and get the better of the two running, so cleaned out the carbs and gave the bike a quick once over and proceeded to start it. It started easy enough but sounded like it had no exhaust on it even though it had. So I then decided to take off the exhaust to see if I could spot the problem, so as I'm removing the first clamp I notice there's no exhaust collets so I think fair enough the PO just never put the exhaust collets back on but then as I remove the first clamp completely two exhaust collets fall onto the floor. Then I realise what the PO had done was first put the exhaust collets into the exhaust ports and then put the header pipes up against them and try to clamp it on this way. To be honest I don't know how they managed this as it's a four into one header so he would have had to place all eight collets at once, get all four pipes pressed against the collets and then clamp it down. A feat I think would be quite impossible to manage but somehow he managed it. No wonder it sounded like it had no exhaust 

You can kinda see in this pic how the header pipes are a bit far away from the engine as the collets keep it out about an extra 2"

[orkid1989]

71 cb750k1
i have plenty on my bike. start from top to bottom. first he tried to mount a fairing on the bike and did it wrong so the handle bars could barley turn. next in a attempt to fix the previous he dented the tank in so they could turn a bit more. he also painted the tank and side covers with blue house paint. the fuel bowl leakes on the tank so he jbwelded it together. he also removed the key ignition and replaced it with a switch and bypassed the switch on the handlebars. also got rid of the original seat cover and bought an ugly aftermarket one and held it on with duck tape. he "upgraded" to a blade style 15 amp main fuse by adding extra small lines and connecting them with the twist nuts and the fuse blew so he put a small piece of copper in the inline fuse holder and put the fuse in over it instead of replacing the fuse. he threw away the original air box and replaced it with the cheap pod filters. also "upgraded" to super low ohm coils. also threw away the original mufflers and ran only head pipes without rejetting the carbs and resulted in me having to rebuild the motor. and the list goes on and on

[orkid1989]

before and after (well still work in progress)

[GreenHornet74]

The dumbest thing the PO did was sell me his CB750. He is missing out on an incredible machine!

[Imago]

That's what I'm thinking... he must have been really short, or wanted a "low down" bike!

My PO put on a harley (or something) rear fender, cut off the upper rear shock mounts and welded on this abomination...

Accomplished what... lower seat height with stock shocks?

[Terry in Australia]

Now THAT'S a propper fix. Grate job Terry!

Thanks mate! Cheers, Terry.

[Smoke Detector]

Man, I don't feel so bad about the condition of mine after reading these posts. My PO mostly is guilty of two things: 1. using it as a parts bike when it was in restorable condition, meaning I am on a perpetual parts hunt and 2. letting it sit in his garage for a decade behind other less-interesting bikes (but of course, his disinterest served my interest).

[Dyrden]

Drywall screws in the four float bowl overflow hoses.

[mrtanner101]

removed the carbs from my bike and didn't give them to the next owner that I got the bike from. Also destroyed the start switch and removed the throttle handle. Oh and lost the Air box.

[Gordon]

Drywall screws in the four float bowl overflow hoses.

Well, how else was he supposed to stop all that expensive gasoline from pouring out of those hoses?

[VTCBike750]

When i got my bike, some PO had removed the ground cable that goes from the from the battery to the frame, had the starter motor connected to the battery, and wired the bike up without a fuse box. And to think I rode the bike like this...for a few miles.

[Jeff.Saunders]

THis could be a very long post....

One KZ1000 I bought had all new allen bolts in the engine cases - the bike was leaking oil badly from the alternator cover - when I tried to unscrew the bolts, my allen wrench wouldn't fit.  The dumb PO used inch bolts on every engine cover - and trashed the threads totally.  Those cases are in my junk pile.

On my 1973 turbo'd Z1, the previous owner rewired much of the harness - every wire was blue...  that harness got swapped out fairly quickly.

I responded to a craigslist ad and the owner rode his Honda 750 over to my house.  He struggled to get up the hill leading up to my house - it turns out there were no teeth on the rear sprocket and the chain wasn't turning the rear wheel very well.  He had the chain as tight as it would go to grab into the aluminum rear sprocket (really just a round circle - the nubs of the teeth barely existed).

I had one bike where the PO welded the front sprocket to the output shaft. 

I bought one bike where the rear suspension didn't work - when I checked the PO had mounted the fiberglass hard bags using home made brackets - the brackets mounted to both the top AND bottom shock mounts...

[Hondawggie]

I just bought a 1971 cb750.  The guy lost the key.  So instead of going to a locksmith with the keycode off the ignition and the bike's title, he

- cut into the wiring harness at the front and finally discovered, apparently through trial-and-error cutting of wires, where to install a toggle switch to bypass the normal ignition switch (no key?  just flip that toggle there).   The 'oops, wrong wire(s)' I am going to have to repair and reconnect into the harness in the front of the bike.

On the back of the bike on the left side, he again added a modification.  Since the starter push-button on the right handlebar is missing, he bought a huge pushbutton (Radio Shack?) a big red push button and attached it with two 12" lengths of wire, once on each side of thie big red button.

The toggle switch in the front hangs down on its 2 wires from around the headlight area all the down to below the exhaust ports on the motor.

Here's how I tried to start her today.

- reach down below the headers, grab the toggle switch and pull it up a bit higher, rest it on the rubber throttle grip so the bare connectors aren't touching metal and grounding out.  ('now don't nudge the bike or that toggle switch will fall,swing down  and hit the header pipes')

- with the toggle switch doing a high-wire balancing act on the throttle grip, now spot the large red push button.   Pull the push button up away from the frame, don't worry there's a foot of wire so you can do that.

Now push the button.  *Don't* let the push button fall


Needs a new harness imo.   The new key from a locksmith? $20 to $35 tops.

[Tugboat]

^^^

Oh, you've gotta give us pics of that!!!!

[WhyNot2]

Oh...heres a couple more:

Battery set.


Toggle Switch

[CycleRanger]

Oh...heres a couple more:
Toggle Switch

Holy Kow, was that a recessed ignition switch??!

And you're kidding about that battery, right?  That's just a joke right??

[WhyNot2]

quote author=CycleRanger link=topic=61742.msg1095147#msg1095147 date=1320937322]

Oh...heres a couple more:
Toggle Switch

Holy Kow, is that a recessed ignition switch??!

And you're kidding about that battery, right?  That's just a joke right??
[/quote]


No joke on the battery.....................serious crap man.[

[Rigid]

I am only amazed that he could multiply 6x2 to get the voltage right on his custom battery install. 

[Godffery]

Here's a lovely "Headlight bracket"
http://www.vinmoto.org/gallery/v/VinMoto-Garage/album03/Godfferys-Garage-123/Things+NOT+to+do/Headlight+bracket.JPG.html

[Rathko]

As a complete beginner when it comes to all things mechanical, I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of my own butchery in the months and years to come, but the PO of my new CB550 was a professional mechanic with his own shop so I hold him to a higher standard: 1) He put together a beautiful new wiring harness with perfectly soldered splices - just didn't use any wire color other than black and forgot to include any fuses; 2) Failed to route the wiring from the starter switch through the ignition so it starts even when turned off and with the key out; 3) At some point he had the swingarm off the frame, forgot the bushing when he reattached it, and figured that hammering in the dust caps tightly enough would solve any problems - it didn't.

[MCRider]

Someone in another thread has a 750F with the tach cable JB Welded into/onto the cam cover. Undoubtedly to fix a leak.

[krusty]

When I got my CB350F one of the first things I did to tidy it up was to polish the alloy covers. When I removed the cam cover I found that the PO had resprayed the engine without masking it off  - there was the camshaft and valve gear covered with silver overspray!