What 'get you home' repairs have you made

[Magnon]

Not all my roadside repairs have always been successful. I've ridden home a few times on a flat tyre, failed to fix a chain due due to the link extractor not being man enough and had a fuel line connector snap with no means of repair available.

Over the years though I've mostly managed to keep going and rarely ended up stranded at the roadside. How often have you been let down by your tool kit or spare parts box?

[Dodger]

I had a throttle cable break ,so I used a piece of string attached to the carb slide and the other end tied to my knee .Stuck my knee out and vroom vroom off we go .

[backofbeyond]

I used twigs, bits of wire and matchsticks found at the side of the road to keep my exhaust system from falling apart during a trip back through France.

In our family car some years ago the wiper linkage from the motor failed in a rainstorm. To continue we tied shoelaces to the wiper arms, brought them back in through slightly open side windows and the kids pulled them backwards and forwards to get the wipers working. Worked perfectly for half an hour till the rain stopped.

[JonStobbs]

On our way back from Romania my Wife's Pegaso had it's second rear puncture, just before the Severn Bridge on the M4 at 2am. Had already used our spare 17" so stuffed in my spare 21" front and got home on that.
Years ago returning from MCC's "Land's End Trial" the exhaust pipe snapped off at the head on my MZ 250. Bodged it somehow with fencing wire nicked from Sedgemore Services fence, still made a racket but got me back.
Only time i've ever failed to bodge and had to rely on breakdown service was in Northern France a couple of years ago coming back from DLWF winter rally. Chain link snapped on the remotest, straightest bit of road in the country which would'nt normally be a problem except i'd lent my spare link to another guy on the rally.I now carry a spare chain and 3 links!

[dash]

Originally Posted by backofbeyond

In our family car some years ago the wiper linkage from the motor failed in a rainstorm. To continue we tied shoelaces to the wiper arms, brought them back in through slightly open side windows and the kids pulled them backwards and forwards to get the wipers working. Worked perfectly for half an hour till the rain stopped.

When my parents got married they spent their honeymoon (in November!) in Cornwall in a split-screen VW camper belonging to my paternal grandparents. My mum frequently recounts the tale of having to operate the wipers by hand while my dad drove after the motor failed, although fortunately for me, their marriage survived this ordeal

[backofbeyond]

It's funny how memories of these things last. The shoelace powered wiper episode happened about 12-13 years ago when my daughter was 5. Completely out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, at the age of 17, she reminded me of it. Probably scarred her for life.

[TravellingStrom]

I hope to not be a constant contributer here, but here is another one. I crashed down a cliff in Kyrgyzstahn and snapped the end off the gear shift lever. I could have ridden for a while using the edge of my boot but instead did the following.

Using the OEM spark plug tool in a DL650 Vstrom tool kit, I cable tied and silver taped it into place and had my self a makeshift gear lever.

This lasted until I entered China and had another one made




Cheers from Shenzen, China
TravellingStrom

[Magnon]

Originally Posted by Dodger

I had a throttle cable break ,so I used a piece of string attached to the carb slide and the other end tied to my knee .Stuck my knee out and vroom vroom off we go .

I generally have spare cables taped alongside the main ones but a length of string (or shoelace) has many uses it would appear. I used to make or repair the cables on my old Brit bikes but they were never very reliable.

I had the large dome nut fall off the bottom of the carb of my old BSA. This lets all the petrol out quite quickly. So I scoured the road for this nut for ages, I didn't find the original but, by good fortune, found something similar but quite a bit larger. I managed to lash this onto the bottom of the carb with iron wire and although it leaked a fair bit it did get me home. If you carried everything that could go wrong with a BSA as spares you'd need very large panniers!

[Martynbiker]

I bodged an exhaust that had cracked at the flange near the head on a dr650
using jb weld and a piece of fence wire wrapped round the header and then i put loops in the end and attached the loops to the bike frame with a bungie cut in half and knots in the cut ends.............the jb weld and bodge got me the 300 miles home!

[Dirtpig]

We would love to see some pictures of these bodges if you have some

[farqhuar]

Spark plug used as replacement for the transmission drain plug after I lost it (and all the oil) around 100km earlier on the Birdsville track last year.

More recently (3 months back), a couple of cable ties used to hold the front subframe and fairing (20kg) on after the metal mounting tabs snapped off on the old telegraph trail(Cape York).

I always find corrugations are great for discovering the weak point on any bike.

[njpaddler]

I always carry small Vise-grips pliers, no more versatile tool exists. Used as a clamp, it gave me back a brake lever from the nub that was left when a tip-over resulted from a bozo who suddenly stopped in the middle of the road for no reason on a very steep hill.

[johnnail]

I read somewhere that a couple of hunters were way up on a mountain in an old jeep when the fuel pump failed. They rigged an enema bag so that the probe dripped gas into the carb and came down in low gear......I wish I could remember what the story said about why they had an enema bag.

[g6snl]

DL650 - On a recent trip back through Europe with the wife the clutch started to slip quite badly in Slovenia. I couldn't think of a bodge to get home other than stick the wife on a plane from Venice................it worked ........I made it back .

[brclarke]

I had an Enfield 500 that was my daily ride to work. One day the return spring for the kickstart lever broke, so I could kick it over once, pull the lever up by hand, and kick over again. I could get the bike started with one or two kicks no problem, but then what to do with the loosely dangling lever..?

I used a loop of old shoestring to tie the lever up and out of the way after getting it started. It actually worked okay, and I kept riding the bike every day to work until the replacement spring arrived from the warehouse about 10 days later.