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

[patricke9]

How 'bout this lovely crushed velvet seat cover on a '77 Kz400 I had:

[BeSeeingYou]

How 'bout this lovely crushed velvet seat cover on a '77 Kz400 I had:

That would be so cool with an Elvis painting on it or maybe one of a bullfighter. 

[lordmoonpie]

Mine was the kickstart shaft removed and plugged with a wine bottle cork and some silicone sealant....sounds bad but it was remarkably effective

[cb650]

That gave me a idea.    i can drill a hole in my clutch cover and wedge in a kickstarter and have a 650 with one.  And not do the hybrid thing. 

[SpAmSoNiTe]

Putting a brass float from a Yamaha XS750 in the CB650's VB44 carbs to fix the overflow issue..  oh wait.. you said previous owner; my bad! 

[55fbomb]

I have a KZ650 the PO put a brand new battery in before i got it and used one about an inch too tall and it grounded out on the bottom of the seat pan and melted the terminal off and melted a huge hole in the battery and burnt a hole in the seat pan.

[OldSchool_IsCool]

Oh the fun continues!  I took the front tire (tyre) off the rim and what to my wondering eyes should appear?  MASKING TAPE COVERING THE SPOKE NIPPLES! 



I did get the bearing retainrer ring out.  The sucker is cracked in half!



I sure hope the threads in the hub aren't too buggered 

[country joe]

I had a 74 harley sprint 350 with electric start. The bike sat for awhile and the piston got stuck in the bore. Well, the po and dont ask me how he did this, hit the electric start button with the piston stuck. He must have hung on the button a long time because he actually twisted and bent the starter housing screws. Genius.

[754]

What the $%^ is wrong with masking tape.. 

 I always use electrical tape or  duct tape, instead of rim strip.. rim strips suck.. dont stay in place...like tape.. the only reason it is there is to protect tube from tearing, or getting a hole poked in them....

 

[MasterChief750]

lets see....... replaced the gauges from my 78 750k with the gauges off an F model. he retitled it in 94 so the bike not only had a higher redline but nowonly had 6k on the odometer, but after tearing into the engine apart i think the speedo was correct just the tach changed out. decided he was a master at fixing carbs, when i bought the bike, if you turned the gas on the entire tank would empty onto the ground in a matter of minutes, good thing he set the floats about 8mm off. he glued the air filter box together. decided the best way to fix a torn seat was duct tape. i dont know how he accomplished this but when i first was trying to figure out what was wrong with the bike the motor would not rev past 3.5k, well the problem was about 2qts too much oil. he adjusted the points too, set the gaps to 1mm, no wonder it ran like #$%*, and i still cant figure out why #2 misses alot, i think it has to do with a oil ring but not sure, but it sure as hell backfired alot, enough one day to blow the welded baffle out the pipe.

[grumburg]

My 66 S90. Apparently blew the piston, and didn't split the cases and clean out the pieces, some the size of your fingernail. Reassembled without wrist pin clips, used gasket sealer for the base of the cylinder and valve cover, and forgot to install the cam chain tensioner spring. 

[Jonesy]

I also had a PO that thought blue RTV was god's gift to humanity. I'll bet Permatex stock went up a few points the day he rebuilt the engine. Thankfully they left the oil pump screen intact...

The worst was when they drilled out the idle jet on carb #3 to the size of a 160 (best guess, my jet wires only go up to 140). It's supposed to be a 40. It would drip gas from the exhaust header and start up without the choke!

Then there was the rusted chrome 4-into-1 that they painted with black barbecue grill paint... oh, and the gold painted carburetors too... 

[Turbogrimace]

PO used pieces of a broom handle to close up holes in the frame where he had cut to remove the backbone siderails.

[fastbroshi]

What the $%^ is wrong with masking tape.. 

 I always use electrical tape or  duct tape, instead of rim strip.. rim strips suck.. dont stay in place...like tape.. the only reason it is there is to protect tube from tearing, or getting a hole poked in them....

 

I think it may hold on to moisture a bit, given it's paper matrix, but I think as long as the bike's in use it may work itself out as the air expands and contracts during riding.

[spitcrazy]

Put the front wheel axle retainer caps on backwards, the caps had gaps on both sides, seated only on the inside edges..amazingly the weren't cracked.

Laced the rear wheel with all spokes on the inside of the hub.

Opened the carbs a few months before I bought it, wrong jets, didn't clean anything, full of varnish and rust from the tank.  Never set float heights, two were 14mm. Said he didn't know the values....he's fifteen years younger than me......hasn't heard of google?

Didn't bench sync, tuned by ears and broke that little dust clip between the sync screws by over adjusting...

Put a stupid solo seat on two months before I bought. Threw the original pan out.

Rear fender, rotated up to reveal more tire, drilled new holes too mount it and the taillight dented it while performing the surgery.

Twisted tail light wires with duct tape thankfully didn't cut into the harness and the wire is very good.

Deformed shifter oil seal when replacing it....I mean,how hard is it to guide it in with gentle taps on a piece of PVC pipe?

6 broken tappet caps... if it leaks, just keep cranking on it!

Carb boots just tightened on all crooked. how difficult is it to wiggle a soft piece of rubber into a correctly seated position?

Incorrect air cleaner.

Clutch cable appeared to be a bicycle brake cable bodged on the lifter with a bolt. I was able to gently hammer the lifter arm back to  shape to accept the proper cable.

Speed and Tach from a different model bike...a 350 or 400? I found the correct ones in awesome shape except for the faces.

What gets me is that this guy, a former German soldier is now a metal fabricator........... I am a financial planner and have more mechanical skill and common sense than him. I had better ask him now if he was ever inside the engine. I hope not. It runs smooth now.

But for the cash, still in fairly nice shape.

[CycleRanger]

Clutch cable appeared to be a bicycle brake cable bodged on the lifter with a bolt. I was able to gently hammer the lifter arm back to  shape to accept the proper cable.

Awesome!

[scrapvalue]

my favorites are welded on shifters and kickstarters.
Instead of tighting the bolts, they wait till they are totally stripped and then "fix" it!

Or instead of welding the old shifter on, they just apply a set of vise grips and call it good.
Although the bike I bought like that came with a nice pair of vise grips

[co425]

Stored in a dog kennel for 25 years being pissed on by every maner of creature. Took 1 year and 1 day to restore. What a terible thing to do to a 69 with only 10,500 on the odo.
[url]http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/ab338/co425/IMG_1407.jpg/url]
[url]http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/ab338/co425/IMG_1410.jpg/url]

[fastbroshi]

That was when you got it?  Looks pretty complete, good score.

[scrapvalue]

Stored in a dog kennel for 25 years being pissed on by every maner of creature. Took 1 year and 1 day to restore. What a terible thing to do to a 69 with only 10,500 on the odo.
[url]http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/ab338/co425/IMG_1407.jpg/url]
[url]http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/ab338/co425/IMG_1410.jpg/url]

That is a $h!tty thing to do to such a great old bike. But if they hadn't of done that, you probably never would have gotten the bike!
Could that be considered a "silver lining"? (you know, the every cloud has a silver lining thing).

[co425]

The pictures dont show the injustice. The dark spot on the top of the front wheel behind the fork. Is rusted through since it sat in a puddle of dog pee. It smelled so bad even after presure washing I had to throw it out.

The silver lining though. I only paid 200 bucks for it. HA 

[547]

Last night I got into the engine from a spare '76 cb750f parts bike in the corner of my basement. The cam sprocket was broken so I decided to split the cases and clean out the broken metal down in the bottom end. I expected to find all the little bits down there. I did not expect to find an Allen wrench.

Someone should start a thread addressing the strangest things you have found inside your bike.

[birdy]

Rattle can tank & panels and tank badges, gloss black paint on chromed forks,matt black paint on rear drum, drilled rear fender to take pannier bolts, ripped out indicators & wiring, put a garden hose (!) on oil breather pipe, had no drain pipes on carb overflows, had a 10mm bolt to hold seat down, looks like hand painted the frame....Looked OK from the photos I bought it from;

<a href="http://s960.photobucket.com/albums/ae82/bigperf125/?action=view&current=BnPrFsg2kKGrHqQOKkIEtlS2hq8mBLitkfo.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i960.photobucket.com/albums/ae82/bigperf125/BnPrFsg2kKGrHqQOKkIEtlS2hq8mBLitkfo.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">[/url]

Next time I'll go and see it first.

[Motoguy23]

I bought a CB360T last year and the PO rewired everything. 

EVERY WIRE WAS BLACK! 

I'm not sure how he managed to keep it all straight.  Also he twisted ends together and wrapped them in electrical tape.  He also used a door hinge as a lisence plate bracket, and put on a different seat and got it to stay by drilling a hole through a tab on the seat and a hole through the frame and put in a wood screw.

[swellguy]

On one my Harley projects the previous owner had installed a 3/4" axle through the rear wheel which had sealed 1" bearings. The axle also had 3/4" spacers. The bike itself was a rigid frame chopper with a Jims 120 cubic inch race motor, probably 140 hp to the rear end. He sold the bike to the shop due to financial distress but complained of "handling problems".