Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

[debaisley]

I went down off road and snapped a turn signal , so I went to the gas station and was forced to eat a delicious ice cream bar , so i could use the stick , and some medical tape from the gas station to splint up the turn signal.

[bkowal]

My DRZ400 was running badly for about 20 minutes. I stopped, and looked down. A rock had smashed the water pump housing, I was running without coolant. Lucky, buddy stopped by on the trail and handed me a wad of Steely. After taking the pump cover off, scraping it clean, and patching it with Steely, it was good as new. Other riders contributed the contents of thier camelbacks to help fill the rad back up

Earily in the day, another fellow rider was riding behind me on on his XR650R on the trail when I heard a loud bang. I look back and the bike is clouded in steam. A small rad hose blew. It turns out the crankcase vent hose on the DRZ was the perfect size, so we where off again in 10 minutes.

When I was a kid, I used to ride a Rupp mini-bike. Miles from home, the chain broke. I found and old wrecked car on the trail, broke the antenna off and bent it to a right angle. Using a rock, it was just the right size to bang the pins out of the chain and replace the broken links.

It seems I stripped one of the valve cover screws on the old KLR650. I was riding down a dirt road, smelled oil, looked down and my right leg was soaked in oil. The valve cover screw had blown out. I found a longer screw on the bike with the same thread pitch, screwed it in a got some bite, rigged up some washers to hold cover down and cover the hole, and rode home.

[JustAL]

When you have bullet holes in your radiator you can use an egg to block the holes up and get out.

Wait, this is about your OWN MacGuyver moment?

[gaspipe]

Originally Posted by Inane Cathode

The only desulphation chemical i know if is a food additive, the name of which escapes me, but its designed to eat and capture metal.

EDTA.

[DELTATANGO]

I rebuilt the engine in my 85 Chev 4X4 once. I had the engine out and the transmission had 125K on it so I decided to take it out too.

I got it out but I didn't have a way to get it to the shop because my truck wouldn't run obviously.

So I put it in my wheelbarrow and wheeled it to the shop about a mile way.

It was pretty funny.

I guess you had to be there.......

[danedg]

This is a funny thread...I love this shit
...a '67 BMW 2000tilux....a 2002 with 4 doors.....nice car...sometimes...
...the oil pan drainplug falls out somewhere.....middle of the night....
took a spare sparkplug and condomed a chunk of the breather hose on the threads...and BEAT the fucker into the drain....
...threw in the last two quarts I had left.....and made it home....
...looked at it the next morning...tight as a frogs ass!....
it was in there a month til I got a new one....

[metlcutr55]

a honda 50 cub can be run for weeks missing the entire rh handlebar if you are young and stupid by removing the throttle cable housing, tieing the bare cable to the ctr area of the handlebar and pulling it by hand.

a jeep that has stalled in a rock garden and run the battery down can be started by removing the fan belt, wrapping a cord around the alternator pulley and yanking to spin it, if you have 4 drunk guys willing to do it for a half hour. possibly the battery regenerated enuf by sitting, but youll never convince us 4 drunk guys of it. and learned on that same weekend that premix does not make a good green wood firestarter, but if you want to remove your eyelashes and eyebrows, its perfect.

a friends harley with a vacuum slide carb stopped running because of a very dirty carb. motor oil on it would free it long enuf to start, but not to go down the road. "we need some wd40 or a better lubricant" said Ed. his girlfriend sheepishly handed over a tube of KY and we made it to the hardware store to get a can of wd.

a cheap c... klr guy can make his own panniers from beer coolers. nearly waterproof (lil leakage around the lids) and indestructable.

and if the cheap c... wont spring for an aftermarket skidplate and shatters a waterpump, a klr can be ridden about .2 miles in rough terrain and about 2x that in easy terrain without coolant, by watching the temp gage and shutting down before the motor begins to melt. takes a little less than 10 minutes before you can start again.

oh and you can make a hash pipe out of a beer can or hardpack ciggy box. someone told me that

[John in Seattle]

I was on my first "real" motorcycle trip, age 16 on my CB-77 Superhawk.

Madison, WI to Chicago, IL and return via US-12. About half-way back to Madison the bike bogs like its running out of gas. I had stubbornly resisted doing ANYTHING mechanical to the bike up to this point, even taking it into the dealer for an oil change.

I pull out the Clymer manual and turn to the troubleshooting section. Just three things are required for your bike to run says Clymer "gas, spark and air". Following the instructions I pulled the plug leads, inserted a screwdriver into the lead and hit the starter. Fat spark on both cylinders. Following the instructions I pulled the gas line from each carb and found plenty of gas. The manual was strangly silent about troubleshooting for air. How can you run out of air? I pulled the covers off the air filters and found the filters to be reasonably clean. I pulled the carb-to-filter hose off each carb and looked inside the carbs.

They didn't look the same. On one carb I could see the piston move up when I whacked the throttle open. On the other side I could not...that was strange. The choke plate was all the way down blocking the airflow. I discovered that the roll pin holding the choke linkage had fallen out. I picked up a roadside beer can (steel in those days) and cut a 1/2 inch wide by 2 inch long rectangle with my Swiss Army knife. Then I rolled the rectangle into a cylinder and pressed it into the roll pin location with my thumb, crimping the two ends so it would not fall out. Then I started up the bike, confirmed that it would reach full revs then put everything back together and rode it home.

That roadside Clymer manual lesson in troubleshooting forever demystified motorcycle mechanics for me. I began doing all my own mechanical work, from that day forward.

[Grider Pirate]

Originally Posted by John in Seattle

That roadside Clymer manual lesson in troubleshooting forever demystified motorcycle mechanics for me. I began doing all my own mechanical work, from that day forward.

[Tim McKittrick]

I was riding my '65 R69 S down the Seward highway when it started tio run on only one cylinder. Oddly, once I pulled over it idled just fine, but just ran on one cylinder when I tried to rev it up.

These old bikes are magneto fired and spark both plugs at the same time, so it wasn't likely to be a spark issue, and I had clear fuel lines on the bike and could see gas was getting to each carburetor. I removed the air tubes (no tools required on this bike- they just push on) and peered into each carb while revving the engine. To my surprise I discovered the needle in the left slide was not moving with the slide. I shut off the bike and removed the slide top (again, no tools needed) and the needle remained in the carb. I fished it out and found that the circlip that keeps the needle in the slide had vanished- just downright gone.

This bike didn't come to me with a tool kit- and I never got around to replacing the tools because I didn't have a way to open the tool box on the tank as the key was long missing (later remedied). I did have my leatherman tool on my belt and I stole the paperclip that was replacing the zipper pull on my old leather jacket and fashioned it into a keeper for the needle. The bike fired right up and ran like a champ.

Then I realized I no longer had a zipper pull on my now open jacket and had to use my leatherman's pliers to zip it back up.

[marchyman]

Well done. But how come no tools.

With these I think I can break the bike down to a bare frame. I'd need a few more to start digging into the engine, though.


The small zip-lock bags contains a spare condensor and the spark plug extensions to do "short one side at a time" carb balancing.

// marc

[Tim McKittrick]

Originally Posted by marchyman

Well done. But how come no tools.

With these I think I can break the bike down to a bare frame. I'd need a few more to start digging into the engine, though.


The small zip-lock bags contains a spare condensor and the spark plug extensions to do "short one side at a time" carb balancing.

// marc

My R69s has the standard small tank on it and the tool door was locked shut. It also has a solo seat and I never had any place to carry a tool roll, besides in a backpack. That's a poor excuse, I know, but the old bugger had been so reliable that I really had not given it a 2nd thought. I have since removed the pins from the tool door lock and can turn it with any key, but have yet to assemble a proper tool roll for it. The poor thing has been sitting in the back of the shop for almost 5 years now, awaiting a transmission rebuild (it had begun to pop out of 2nd and 3rd) so a tool set hasn't been the highest priority......

[concours]

Originally Posted by Grider Pirate

Driving my Toyota from Tucson AZ to Rapid City, SD in August. 30 miles after refueling in Los Cruces, NM, said Toyota sputters and dies, like it ran out of fuel. I pull over, scratch my head for a while wondering WTF? I removed the air cleaner, and the site glass window in the float bowl, and it is by the O-Jesus, dry as a bone. Hmmmm. Full tank of gas, none getting to carb. Bummer. Scratch head some more. Light bulb comes on. I fly model planes. How do we get fuel to the motor? Run a little pressure into the fuel tank! This Toyota has a non-vented cap, and a charcoal canister under the hood. Hmmmmm. I found the line from the canister to the tank, and detached it from the canister. It wouldn't really reach anywhere, so I attached the radiator overflow hose to it, and some windshield washer tubing fit into that very nicely. I blew into the conglomertion of hoses, like blowing up a ballon, but stopped abruptly when I heard a "Poink!" from the tank. Fifteen seconds later, fuel is pouring out the site glass hole in the float bowl, that I hadn't thought to replace yet! Glass back in, Air filter back on, hose careully taped up and through the driver side window. I'm on the road again, running perfectly fine, except having to put a lungful of air into the tank every 15 miles or so!! The Hitchikers I picked up south of Sante Fe thought it was weird, but WTF, it worked! To hold the air, I closed the window on the tube, pinching it shut.
The short version: I blew my Toyota from Los Cruces to Rapid City.

Did that with my VW dune buggy before, just blew into the (re-routed) vent hose...

[Kayak Dancer]

Many years ago I dropped my Montesa enduro on a rock and put a hole in the fiberglass tank near the bottom. I laid it on its side to prevent fuel loss. I cleaned the hole and chewed a pack of Juicyfruit gum while doing this, then after the gum was devoid of most of its juice I inserted it into the apeture and worked it around like body filler. Rode home and the gum held for two more days of setting in the garage before I properly repaired it.

[DieselSJ]

Not motorcycle related but good nonetheless...

Aftermarket oil pressure gauge, the cheap nylon line had split and was spewing oil everywhere. Searched through my stuff and found a band-aid and a zip tie. Wrapped the band-aid around the split, reinforced it with the zip tie and it didn't leak a drop in the 100 mile trip home.

Overheated the engine on out desert racer to the point where one of the freeze plugs fell out. Our fuel jugs have rubber stoppers that you put into place and tighten with a wing nut. We popped one of those into the hole and tightened it up and went on for a finish.