Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

[troidus]

Originally Posted by hobbes95821

Not mine, but a good one.

Parepin will need to stay far, far away from border crossings with that bike. It would suck to have a drug dog "hit" on the bike, and end up in prison for trafficking.

[MotorCade]

Fixed a KLX 110 (my son's) like it was a KLR.

He dropped his bike on the first day out and broke the shifter peg off the lever. I dug through the tool bag and found a ducati spark plug tool and a small screwdriver. I bent the screwdriver and hammered the first bit of plastic through the hole, and then hammered the whole assembly onto the shift lever. the lever butts up against the screwdriver inside the tube, and doesn't move around. It was enough to get us through the weekend's riding.


IMG_4734 by MotorCade77, on Flickr

[heavy Cy]

I still laugh about my buddys K.B. and John coming back from a bicycle race in StLouis thirty years ago in K.B.'s VW Type3 Squareback. When the throttle cable broke, they slid the engine hatch cover off and clamped the cable with a pair of Vicegrips. John, facing backwards, stretched over the back seat and worked the Vicegrip throttle based on K.B's panicked audibles "MORE!", "LESS!!", "LET OFF!" as K.B. worked the clutch, shifter, and brakes. They made it home through 45 minutes of hot and humid StLouis summertime stop-and-go construction congestion! Ya gotta love it!

[FixerDave]

Originally Posted by MotorCade

Fixed a KLX 110 (my son's) like it was a KLR. ... It was enough to get us through the weekend's riding...

If teaching a kid to ride is about instilling life-lessons, your son just learned the best there is.

If doing it right leaves you with nothing... do it another way and keep having fun!

Now you just have to teach him that doing it right when there's time will help keep the next weekend fun too.

David...

[tgeliot]

Originally Posted by heavy Cy

I still laugh about my buddys K.B. and John coming back from a bicycle race in StLouis thirty years ago in K.B.'s VW Type3 Squareback. When the throttle cable broke, they slid the engine hatch cover off and clamped the cable with a pair of Vicegrips. John, facing backwards, stretched over the back seat and worked the Vicegrip throttle based on K.B's panicked audibles "MORE!", "LESS!!", "LET OFF!" as K.B. worked the clutch, shifter, and brakes. They made it home through 45 minutes of hot and humid StLouis summertime stop-and-go construction congestion! Ya gotta love it!

Years ago my boss described having broken throttle cable on his Beetle while on a trip to Maine. He tied some twine to the throttle arm (which rotates towards the rear of the car when the throttle us opened), ran the twine out through a vent slit in the engine cover, over the roof, and tied it to his left index finger. He drove all the way back to Boston this way, using his right hand to steer and shift.

[Dexter2811]

The throtle cable history reminds me of another McGyver moment.

Had an Honda MB-100 which has a bigger carb (XR125 I guess) and had the choke lever installed in the left handlebar with a MTB brake lever (as it was a decomp lever, get the pic?)

My GF asked to drive a little as we was in a non traffic backroad, so I let her just to hear the little bike go biim biim biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and note GF was fighting her right arm "It won't accelerate" she screams while pulling over. Took a quick check and the throtle cable has come out the throtle assy with as the hitch stretched out (she pulled the throtle way too much and kept forcing it) so I tried to fix it, but every time you accelerated the cable come off. So I scratched my head give a quick look around the bike and BINGO took the choke lever, move it to the right grabbed a cable end (the brass thingy with a screw) cut the cable and fix it to the lever so I had a finger throtle.

[MotorCade]

Originally Posted by FixerDave

If teaching a kid to ride is about instilling life-lessons, your son just learned the best there is.

If doing it right leaves you with nothing... do it another way and keep having fun!

Now you just have to teach him that doing it right when there's time will help keep the next weekend fun too.

David...

Thanks! He had to dig in his piggy bank for his own funds, and he bought a replacement shift lever with a folding tip for next time. We install it tonight.

[Jayrod1318]

Originally Posted by arcanum

Heat shrink works well to keep shoe string ends from unraveling as well. That cheap crap little plastic OEM shoe string end protector just does not cut it.

It's called an aglet

(Thanks Phineas and Ferb)

[planemanx15]

Power just went out during hurricane sandy. Before setting up the generator I took a flashlight and taped it to the bottom of a water bottle filled with water. Makes an instant lantern.

[IndyChizzle]

I saw this one on my way to get a pizza tonight:



I thought "where did he get yellow panniers" right up until I saw the logo on the side...

[Bob_M]

Originally Posted by planemanx15

Power just went out during hurricane sandy. Before setting up the generator I took a flashlight and taped it to the bottom of a water bottle filled with water. Makes an instant lantern.

Thats brilliant.

Great idea.

[zeerx]

Originally Posted by phreakingeek

as i was unloading a bike from the truck in a downpour...i nearly slipped and busted my ass on the wood ramps. Luckily i was home and could grab my trusty dewalt drill and a handful of screws. I spent about 15 minutes driving approx 50 screws into the ramp i needed to walk down. I put them in as rows of 6 accross the board and spaced the rows 6 inches apart all the way down the board. I noticed that i had to back out a few screws since the driver tended to countersink the head. When they were all in and above the surface of the board, it turned a wet slippery board into a nice easy to walk on surface.

I had the same problem. Just stapled some roofing shingles. Super grip.

[ibafran]

Originally Posted by IndyChizzle

I saw this one on my way to get a pizza tonight:



I thought "where did he get yellow panniers" right up until I saw the logo on the side...

Long ago, some boy scouts wanted to have storm-proof, extra large backpacks for staying in the backcountry longer. They took some ordinary pack frames and mounted large, tough, plastic kitchen garbage containers to them. Not the round containers but the squarish ones. These things pre-dated tupperware with the snap on lids. The scouts just threw a piece of oilcloth over the top opening with a turn of rope to keep it there.
Sometime later, I saw bicycle pannier baskets that folded flat against the bicycle when not needed. With that idea, I wondered what it would take to craft such baskets to accept some useful sized plastic containers? If the plastic containers are sized to be common and cheap, it might be easy to crash 'em and buy new ones at a big box store. Farm & Fleet sells nice tough feed bins in various sizes.
No, I am not a KLR rider. But I do like that down&dirty, proven-tough, post-apocaliptical look as it wards off those pretentious GS clowns. Kitty Litter panniers with a cuppla ADV stickers looks like useful pretty good fun to me.

[XpressCS]

Originally Posted by planemanx15

Power just went out during hurricane sandy. Before setting up the generator I took a flashlight and taped it to the bottom of a water bottle filled with water. Makes an instant lantern.

I do that all the time for night hiking when I go with friends.

[Speedo66]

Originally Posted by Wlfman

Or better yet, don't have any keys except the bikes ignition key on the ring. This way you don't have to worry at all about scratches...

I need one other key in addition to my ignition key, the key for my top case.

What I do is screw them tightly together with a small nut and machine screw, and grind off any protruding screw past the nut. I assemble them together at about a 120deg angle, so they clear everything, and the ignition key can turn in the lock.

The other key touches nothing, so no scratches, but is always available. No problem with the small keys in my pocket.

Also, as on all my bikes, an extra set is hidden inside the headlight shell, inconspicuously taped with black electrical tape to other black taped wires.

The hidden keys saved my butt big time in Europe once.