Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

Just catching up on this very old thread ......

So, where do I buy the good kind of zip ties? It is not like some packages are labeled "bad" and some are "good". They all looked the same to me. ....

EXCEPT ... At Harbor Freight, they sell a package of all stainless steel zip ties. I was tempted but the package was big. Never had a need for metal zip ties. Maybe I should get it anyway and give away small portions to other motorcycle friends. What the hell am I saying? None of my friends carry ANY tools!

Nice, I'll need to find some of these. Do you remember the size of the package?

The ties are thinner than the plastic, the package easily have 50, maybe even 100. Price was good. I did not buy it because I know I don't need that many. I have trouble using up the plastic ones I purchased 20 years ago!

A bent nail (found on the road) will act as a substitute link pin for the throttle linkage (at the carb) on a 1966 chevelle. Of course this was at 3am on highway 505 past Vacaville in 1992..

Buddy is driving a 67 pattern 1/4 ton SMP Jeep across a field as we are yakking. (M38A2 for our US neighbors). We hit an unseen ditch and the Jeep flies in the air. No seat belts since there is no roll bar and you actually want to be thrown clear. Suddenly I'm looking down at my seat from 3 feet in the air. Buddy lands on my lap with the shifter knob in his hand. Motor sputters and dies. No juice. No radio. Middle of nowhere. We open the hatch at the base of the windshield and see that the batteries (2x12 volt) have broken loose and the terminal clamp is snapped off on one side. We rip the cable from under the dash. Run it around the outside of the windshield and touch it to the terminal. Presto, power. Now how to hold it...buddy clamps the battery compartment lid down while I hold it in position. Gets us back to base. Oh yeah, it is the troop Warrant Officers Jeep, we mention the loose connection and carry on.

Sorry, senior moment ..... the stainless steel zip ties at Harbor Freight comes in a package of 25 pieces, approx 8-10 inches long, 1/8 inch wide. Priced around $5.

Thank you. Will pick some up the next time I swing by HF.

Ooooh-Oooooh-Ohhhhh ... I got one ...... nearly forgot .......

Coming out of work, miscalculated how cold it will get. Freezing my ass off. Pulled over to do the warm up dance and hug my hot engine to loosen up my fingers. Before I remount, I remove the sheep skin seat pad and stuffed it in my chest. Warm and fuzzy all the way home. I guess it is true, more reserve warm blood for the extremities.

Come to think of it, an Air Hawk seat bladder should work as well!

Bubble wrap works well, but not well enough to keep my from buying an electric vest. Had I wrecked, it would have sounded like the 4th of July.

Keep using the bubble wrap, you won't need an air bag vest. The exploding bubble will warn cages so they won't run you over if you crash.

With my luck they'd hear it, slam on brakes and smear me on the road.

or repeatedly drive backwards n forwards over ya to hear them "cool" poppy noises! oser

On my way to daytona beach for bike week and the voltage regulator fried on my T595 leaving me in the middle of groveland (nowhere). Went to the nearest Autoparts store with only 60 bucks in my pocket got a used car battery, a roll of ductape and some electrical connectors. Duct taped the battery to my rear seat and rigged it into the electrical system using some solid strand wire my friend had leftover from work. Used this set up to get around daytona and to go home 200mi. Only having to recharge 2 times the entire weekend.

Thread: Cross country On A $50 Bike
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=366117

Bunch of Russian (they recently got their US citizenship) college kids from Cornell University did an amazing trip across the country ...... on 70's 80's era bikes ....

One of the bike charging system crapped out. They keep swapping batteries between good bikes and failed bike so they can keep rolling.

Ooooh-Oooooh-Ohhhhh ... I got another one .............

Once the tire bead got unseated, no amount of pumping will get the bead to seat back onto the rim, not with a small pump anyways. Saw on youtube ....

1/ spray WD-40 around the rim, only half way around is suffice, ...
2/ lighter lit and ready, spray the WD-40 to generate a flame thrower to ignite the WD-40 in the tire/rim.
3/ The burning WD-40 at the rim/tire expands the surrounding air, seating the bead to the rim with a quick pop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M0GNLvPmAg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSDPHjo1zRU

When you fit soft bags and don't want to mess with a standoff rack ( expensive!!) take some wire and wire one of these to your muffler.

This rubber-like non-stick baking/freezer mat is a pan liner made of food grade woven silicone. It's thermal shock resistant from -40 degrees to 600 degrees and is reusable up to 3000 times.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11267599


no burnt bags, bag can rest on muffler, as can a leg or arm and not get burnt.

I've got a few. I learned to ride in the desert and when i'm broke down in the middle of B.F.E. I tend to get really creative really really fast. I always have some tools on me, but i never have had *everything* i need on hand to do a proper repair.

Story #1

I had just put an over sized tank on my '01 YZ250 and had gone for a ride. After a bit I get the distect smell of gas. I look down and see that gas is just poring out of the petcock where it meets the tank. I pull the tank on the spot and set it on it's sit to stop the flow of gas. I then scour the desert looking for somthing, anything to work as a gasket. much to my surprise I find a small flat hunk of rubber sticking out of the sand. I grab it, punch a few holes in it and install it between the tank and the petcock. It worked fantastic and it's still there seven years later.

Story #2

I'm riding with my '93 DR350S out in the middle nowhere and I eat it snapping my clutch lever off right past the perch. Of course I do not have a spare (who carries those with them right?) with me. I don't have much, but I have one thing on me to use. and what might that be? Why it's a roll of electrical tape! of all of the helpful in things I could have brought with my I have electrical tape. Awesome, how what to do with it? I scour the desert (again) and I find me an old marker. Now I can work with this. I pull the back of it off and pull out the felt stuff in it. I then cram it on what remains of the lever and tape it for all it's worth. It worked, kinda-sorta. But it got me about 100 miles back to my house.

Story #3 [ As narrated by my good friend Zack ]

Well, you see what had happened was,

Kav [ that's me! ], Jeremy and I were out on the loop around Buttercup sand dunes. We were cranking along pretty well (read the bike got away from me a few time and it was all I could do to stay on) when we had a bit of trauma. This loop is about 20 miles long, and a good time is an hour. Every time we get to the farthest point I worry a little bit since the only civilization out there is on the Mexican side of the border (so are we) and I have herd a few stories about people being jumped. Well, anyway things have always been good so far, but we had to have at least one bad experience.

First, I the one who knew the trail (read: I was showing this trail to some newbies to the trail and didn't want to look stupid) took a wrong turn somewhere and we ended up in some rock quarry (in the middle of the dunes?). Well, thats not all bad I can still get out of the dunes no matter where I turn around to find my self. Really it gets bad when we get to some really rugged terrain and Kav decides to bury his bike to the top of the rear wheel. As I stopped to help him out Jeremy decides he doesn't want to come back down from the top of the hill where he is playing [ he was also very low on gas we later found out ]. After we got Kav unstuck he decided to do the same thing to a lesser degree only this time he grabbed the largest rock that would fit in the chain guide and jammed it in between the chain and the sprocket.

It was obvious that the rock was not coming out the way it went in so I, master of makeshift tools, removed his chain with a lighter and a rock . Kav managed to force the rock out with a stick that had obviously gotten lost. Then, after some fighting and swearing we got the chain back on.

We never did catch back up with Jeremy. He left for camp while all the real work was going on since he was running low on gas but, in the end every one made it back safely and I learned a really good lesson.

Never bring tools with you. Every time you bring a tool with you nothing breaks and life is boring. Besides, whatever breaks I can fix with rocks and cancer aids.

McGyver is a Rider too, he rides a BMW mc in SoCal. He might be a member of this forum. hello there Richard Anderson, pls acknowledge.

mcgyver got stung by an insect while riding in Vancouver Canada:

"I was away. My best friend and I miraculously had non-conflicting schedules and took immediate advantage of the anomaly. The following morning we met, trusty steeds 'twixt our knees, rumbling their respective 1200 cc's of vibrating metal for all to.... er.... complain about or envy.

We jumped up the coast for a few days, exploring inland roads just recently or not yet on the maps we referenced occasionally. We actually found our way in TO and out OF a mountainous expanse that dumped us at a lonely, yet manned military gate. I mean, the guy was armed and would not have let us pass without license, insurance, and registration. Meaning, of course, that we would have had to absolutely turn around and reverse our tracks through the mountains we had just survived in the heat of the DAY. We would have faced fading light and darkness all the way out to the coast

But we made it through... and then at 87 mph I got stung (or bitten) by something, just off center of my spine, about eight inches south of the nape of my neck. Quite a shock and just a tad distracting. Got the bike stopped and was able to strip off my top-side armor just in time for my friend to drive up, come to a stop, and SQUASH some kind of nasty, little, hairy-winged pest, that I am SURE was deathly poisonous and I should have passed into heaven right then and thar! But, I pulled through, only to live on for the next adventure.

Ooops, I just got sleepy and I still must assist Wylie with some homework.

Lovely night,

Rikc"

Posted this in another thread, but it seems kinda McGyverish.

Here are some pics of my homemade tool to remove the input bearing collar on my airhead rear end.

I made it out of a threaded water pipe connector, 1.5inch nominal size, I think.
Put some bearing blue on the threaded input bearing collar so it made a mark on the pipe fitting. I then scribed those lines and cut away the metal between the four tags. Using more bearing blue for a final fit.









Then I cut two slots in the other end to fit my large square shank screwdriver, to turn the tool with.


Bolted the rear end to the bench. Heated it spitt sizzlin hot with my heat gun and propane torch, and unscrewed that input bearing collar. Bit of pipe over the end of the screwdriver provided torque to overcome the Loctite. But it actually popped out reall easy. Two hours to make the tool. Two minutes to do the job.


Crude yes, but the working parts were a nice fit for a nice drive.


And here is how I locked the rear end to get the input drive nut off before all this:


Placed the bevel unit on the wheel, splines engaged, and used a ratchet tie down strap wrapped around the input boss and the tire and spokes to stop the bevel unit from turning as I torqed the input nut til it came loose. Applied torch also to overcome Loctite.