What 'get you home' repairs have you made
 

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?

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 .:D

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.

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!

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!

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!

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

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.

Picked up a 2 1/2" deck screw in a rear tire. Blew the tube and broke the rim strip into several pieces. Didn't have enough tape to go around the rim. So I cut a new strip out of the blown tube. Inserted a new tube and rode on.

daryl

I used bungees to resecure my top box after one of its retaining parts snapped in a tumble. It has worked so well I have just left them in place. The hooked ends of the bungee loop into the top box and so when you close the lid and lock it they cannot be removed.

- Used the trunk of a small tree and fencing wire to shore up a trailer leaf spring with three (out of six) leaves broken. That got me 300km until I found a similar spring in a wreckers that was good enough to get me home.

- Wired an electric fuel pump to the tail light for a friend when the pump circult failed somewhere in the loom in the middle of nowhere. (No, it wasnt just a fuse!)

- Wrapped cardboard around a chafed wiring loom that was intermittently shorting on the frame.

- Used a rubber band and a paperclip to replace a broken throttle return spring.

- Replaced a welsh plug (freeze plug) in a block with a section of tree branch whittled down to size and jammed in the hole. The wood expanded and it remained leak-free for weeks!

Cheers,

Here's a radiator cap I made to the same design. It is actually perfectly round where it seats in the rad. The cable-ties are just to stop it popping like a champagne cork. It worked fine with no loss of coolant; just a few bubbles out of the end-grain.

Between Acapulco and Cuernavaca, Mexico
 

What a great thread. I have always wanted to share this true story.

Many years ago circa 1972 while touring Mexico in a 1966 Volvo station wagon
with a 122 S 4 cylinder Volvo engine carrying SU carbs - same engine used in marine applications, a support brace for "add on" air conditioner broke and somehow snapped off the fuel pump.

My young GF was from Trinidad and quite beautiful and I was very concerned, for her and indeed for myself, as it was coming dusk and all caution had been, not to be on this particular road after dark, due to "revolutionary activity," in the province. There had been several murders of tourists.

I had an extra fuel pump and was all about trying to remove the broken one and install the spare when a volkswagan pulled up close behind. A very large nordic/Swedish looking man stepped out, looked at me and stated "Dats a Volvo"
I agreed, trying to figure his reason for stopping.

My concern was soon answered when he explained that he worked for the Volvo factory in Sweden and had some tools with him. Lynette and I stood amazed as he brought out a large wax cloth roll containing professional looking tools.

We were more amazed when his expert hands moved smoothly over the 122 S and quickly replaced the fuel pump. By the time he completed his work, which included a quick carb adjustment, it was dark so he offered to follow us to Cuernavaca, where I promised him beer and a good meal.

Once safely in town and after downing a few, I finally asked him...

"You work for Volvo right?" "Ja" he replied....."Then what the hell took you so long, we broke down an hour before you arrived?" We all had a good laugh and this is a true story.

xfiltrate

Eat, Drink and Be Careful

I once rigged a temporary gravity feed fuel tank on a Lada, when the fuel line nipple into the carbs removed itself from the casting. Duct taped it to the roof, used an empty washer fluid bottle and the now useless fuel line which was a press fit into the carbs. Ran for an hour to get home.

A couple of times on bikes and chain saws I have whittled wooden oil filler plugs. Use green wood, and if you are careful about the diameter and taper, it will screw right in. Leave it 6 inches long to make removing it easier. Another time I used a big potato pressed into place by the weight of the hood to make a temporary oil cap on a jeep.

I have used the aluminum foil fuse trick a few times. I learned that one can control the amperage to a degree by rolling a tighter or looser cylinder of foil, cut to length with a pocket knife scissor. Works best on old style glass tube fuses. A wire from a bread bag twist tie worked once on a modern style fuse, but glowed red hot in the night. That was the thinnest wire I could find.

My brother in law fell off his XT350 on some slippery beck stones and he managed to smash the oil filter cover into 2 bits on the same rocks, it also bent one of the 3 bolts and smashed out the case on the front top bolt.
We were about 3 miles down a trail and we didn't have mobiles then so I straightened the bent bolt with a rock and put the cover back on with some big washers I always carried and the bent bolt helped by forcing the broken part of the cover onto the main part of the cover.
Topped up the oil from my bike and rode home 5 miles with only a tiny leak from the cover.

Steve

Bowber............

Any photos ??

Cheers

DP

Here's a new one from me. (Non-bike again, sorry!)

The six month old (cheap crappy far-eastern) gearshift linkage bush broke on my 74 VW Bug. The two halves of the bush fell down into the tunnel somewhere I couldn't get them. I could only select 1st and 2nd. :helpsmilie:

I cut the end off a pencil eraser to the approximate size and put a hole through it with a corkscrew. Then I jammed it into the linkage and held it in with a cable tie. The shift action was surprisingly quite good. I had all gears available again and it got me home no problems.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...A2MzkuanBn.jpg

The eraser is the white bit covered in grease. :D

Cheers,
Brett.

Hi,

My bottom steering bearing broke, after riding sand in Sudan

http://www.adventure-travel-experien...afrika_052.jpg

so i replaced it with the one from the top. For the top i bought a normal bearing that fitted more or less. While taking this foto i got arrested by the police. To take fotos in Sudan is illegal:

Transafrika - Motorbike travel tour through africa part 1

Tobi

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 :D

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.

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

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...F0195small.jpg


Cheers from Shenzen, China
TravellingStrom

I once had a throttle cable snap on my CB750, these bikes had two cables, one to open and one to close, so I popped the tank off and swapped the ends over on the carb linkages, that gave me a throttle that worked backwards, interesting ride home :funmeterno:

I also had the throttle cable snap on a puch moped, this time I tied the cable around the footbrake lever and slackened off the rear brake cable, riding home with a foot operated throttle was a little interesting, on the same bike another time the throttle cable snapped again, so I removed the slide completely, leaving me with a motor that would only run flat out, a bump start and using the killswitch to change gear was easy enough with only 3.8 BHP.

That's truly heroic.

If we're recounting historic stuff; on my FS1E, the spark plug threads got knackered and the thing used to fly out with a big POP, usually when doing a stupid overtake with my chin on the tank in typical FS1E high-speed mode. Always easily fixed using the foil from inside a pack of Embassy No1, wrapped round the plug before re-fitting.

The ignition switch gave up so once it was hot-wired, I used to stop it by either stalling or reaching down and pulling off the plug cap.

The stand fell off so I used to have to find somewhere to lean the bike or just lay it down.

The kick-start also fell off so in the last few months of ownership it was bump-start only.

The headlamp wiring melted one day so I used a push-bike light taped to the front to satisfy plod. Stayed like that for months.

The throttle cable snapped once but I managed to tie it to my knee so I could lift my leg to accelerate and get me home. I did a proper fix with this though; a knot in the end of the cable with a good blob of solder, filed to fit the twist grip. Ok, so I had to shorten the outer of the cable which meant that the revs went up if I turned the bars to much.

Still got £75 when I sold it as it was 1974 unrestricted model.

Happy Days !!!!

Non-motorbike story.

Worn out disc brake pads on a Ford F350 in Africa. Pads are NOT available anywhere. Find a pad that can be welded onto the backing you have left and continue on. We did this for about a month till visitors brought us the correct parts.

I've since tossed the welded together pads.

One of my Son's friends rode by the other day with his moped's throttle cable snapped off at the nipple at the throttle tube...he rode by with the cable in his teeth!!! buuuurrrrr

Fencing wire
 

Just a big and very humble THANK YOU.

To all the farmers / property owners who have unknowingly supplied fencing wire, to fix, tow, tie and numerous other temporary fixes to get mobile.

Many of us would have found this commodity lifesaving !

Seasons greetings and happy travels :mchappy:

sudden coolant loss
 

While riding the Blue Ridge Parkway the thermostat housing on my Kawi split at the hose connection. It was Independence Day Weekend, 2011, so a 45 minute ride to Wally Land (open 24 hrs) to purchase a magic marker, hacksaw blade, sand paper and 'Blue Magic Quik Steel'. Cut the magic marker aluminum tube to make a sleeve an inch or so long, sanded the inside of the housing and glued the sleeve inside the split housing spout...worked like a charm.

Vise-grips to the rescue
 

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.

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.

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 .

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.

In serbia this year solo on a cbr600, the bike was overheating the fan wasn't kicking in and turning the bike off when stationary means the water isn't moving around and will just boil in situ.

Unplugged the positive connector to the horn and made the cable a bit longer, and just held the horn button down when required..

pair of vice grips to extend what remained of the sheered off clutch lever

and using a piece of fairing i cut out of a friends dirt bike to patch up his plastic fuel tank using two component glue
worked like a charm and he still rides around like that after more then six months

What 'get you home' repairs have you made
 

Brclarke,

Funny same happened to me on a Bullet 350 but in the middle of the Zanskar range in the himalaya. I used a length of metal wire from some farmers, and tied it to the handle bars when not in use. It was a royal PITA as that particular bike cut out every time I stopped.

I think the Indians must be the bodge-fix kings. On a different bike I had it serviced by a truly abysmal outfit of 'mechanics' in Rishikesh. A few days later it became apparent that while they had changed the bars to a low set of choppers, they failed to change the cables, not only that they didn't tighten the bars so after a rough stretch the bars came forward and pulled all the cables tight, snapping the internal mechanism in the throttle jamming it closed (and ruining a clean pair of underwear in the process).

I wheeled the bike to the nearest village where thirty blokes crowded around. We took the throttle apart and then one blot picked a twig up from the floor and jammed it into the mechanism with some superglue - hey presto it did for another 250 miles until I got it back to the mechanic.

Bush winch
 

In 1992 i was traveling around Australia on my own in a 1978 XC Ford Falcon 4.1ltr,somewhere between Emerald and Longreach i came across a dried out river/creek bed that's bridge had been washed out, i was'nt about to turn around if i could help it, so walked alongside the riverbed until i found a spot where i reckoned the bank was low and slopey enough to drive in and out the other side, still a bit lively though, but bugger it, so i drive in ok and cross the bed with out any problem, but i under estimated the angle of the bank on the far side and after several goes at it, and loosing the number plate i sat down and got the stove out for a brew, tea is an amazing brain stimulator i reckon. AAHH!! i thought,there's a very handy tree about 15ft from the bank, (not too many of them about either) i got a good bit of rope in the boot, and a spare wheel, it's worth a go,so i turned the car around with the arse facing the way out, i got the spare wheel out and let the tyre down, jacked the car up and put it on, i tied the rope really tight around the flat tyre so it would grip and form a pulley, the other end went round the tree, just, then i put the car in reverse,and being an automatic i could leave it in gear keeping the rope tense while i got out and steered it, keeping an eye on the rope on the wheel,and gently putting my foot on the throttle a bit as we went up the bank backward's, laughing like a lunatic and thinking to myself,me and PG tip's can solve anything. Pretty damn ingenious i thought,:smartass: and so did the blokes in the next pub i came across, which was the Emerald Hotel :thumbup1:

ok bodges and roadside repairs.... here goes....
let me think back....
my first bike, a 1984 suzuki cl50, the P.O. had used sealent instead of gaskets on the motor, so the top end went, i rode it a mile with no piston rings at about 3mph.... my mates tomos (same year model oddly enough) decided to blow all the bulbs on the dual carriageway (yes 70mph limit and we rode mopeds on it!) at night, so i was his lights for a few miles, which was VERY scary!
then came my gilera runner, 2001 plate 4 stroke.... loads of problems with that one, let me see, i rode into the back of a car, and smashed all the panels, so used duct tape to hold it together (good for over 70mph by the way) the variator smashed to peices once at 70mph and locked the back wheel, couldnt fix that at the side of the road!
next came my cheapy £50 pit bike one of those daft chinese things with the big bore honda crunchy engine, anyway, me and a mate where riding in some wasteland, and my chain snapped and he ran out of fuel, i fixed my broken chain with some old wiring from a burnt out car and towed him home with some rope we found laying around! crazy stuff!
then there was my suzuki gt125, i did lots of bodges, they were originally temporary, but lots stayed forever, the list was a follows:
the ignition was so worn out that i just used any old key to start it
it got stolen so i bypassed the ignition and fitted a hidden switch
the steering lock had to be smashed off (from the theft!)
the seat rusted, so i cut the subframe and got a cafe racer seat, which was cable tied on (so i could top up the oil tank!)
the bars bent when it blew over once, so i fitted some clip ons with some old innertube cut up to make them fit!
oh the list goes on.....
next bike is my VF750, i "ran out of talent" in a hairpin in a tunnel and managed to "park" it in a drainage ditch, we pulled it out and wheeled out of the tunnel, when i tried to start it, coolant poared out, so i freewheeled down the mountain (luckily we were at the top and a petrol station was at the bottom!) and just pushed the top rad hose back on, and it was fixed.

hmm few bodges in my 5-6 months of riding so far
had a wee spill and snapped my clutch lever, disconnected the lever and used a spanner and gaffa'd the cable on. got me home & stayed like that for a week while i was waiting for the replacement...

Zip tied some sticks together to hold my rack together after it snapped in half on a dual carriageway... took me being flashed by the car behind for some time to notice :oops2:

Taped together mine and my mates plates after some toerags had so kindly smashed them off for us, quite amusing watch a xj6 with flappy plate and furious rider go over speed bumps :D

Loving this thread, some of these are genius!

Back in the day and on a CT175 Yamaha, I towed mate on his Bultaco Lobito about 15 kl with a 800mm long bungie cord.By the time we hit town it was at least 4 meters long,on the slack.:rofl:
Then there was a Mark Two Zephyr with twin SU carbs and a busted link.A matchbox to hold it at lowish:innocent: revs got it through town and home. Intersections were interesting :frown:

leak fuel tank fix
 

On return from France to UK last year I started to leak fuel from under the tank. Close inspection found some bad corrosion and vibration on frame caused pin hole leak. Quick fix was chewing gum and gaffer tape which got me home.

Once home I bought some of that 2 pack tank weld stuff for fuel leaks and that worked for a couple of months and then the leak got a lot worse. After speaking to one of our Aircraft fitters at work he suggested I try B2 Aircraft sealant which they use to seal high pressure fuel tanks on the Aircraft we manufacture. Bottom of tank now plastered in the stuff. A bit messy to apply and cannot be sanded or painted so only good where it doesnt show. It also comes frozen so you have to defrost it and then have 20 mins to work with it..

Works a treat! and hopefully will hold up for my UK to Croatia trip this summer :)

Fuel tank leak from a pin hole. Fixed by driving in a self taping screw with a steel washer and rubber washer (a bit of old inner tube) under the head. This thread has just reminded me of it - it's been holding about 3 years now, think I'll continue to leave well alone

Sent from my GT-P3110 using Tapatalk

This might be of interest if you're overlanding on anything using points -

AA mechanic fixes Land Rover with a spud | Western Morning News

The original owner of my R80G/S told me that the rear crankshaft main seal started leaking when he was in India on a RTW trip, not having the tools or spares to do a proper job he smeared some instant gasket around the seal and hoped for the best. That repair got him home, 30 years and 90,000 miles later it is still there and has not leaked.

When someone has put Petrol in their diesel car...
 

and is 20 K from home when it quits. In saying that the car drove about 15Km on the fuel Mix of about 80% petrol 20 % Diesel He'd just filled it at the petrol station about 10 mins earlier

Recovery was not an option due to how it had quit and he had flattened the battery getting it out of traffic

So Rig up a dummy tank

Turn on the ignition (to open the stop valve)

and pump with the bulb to flush PetroDeisel out (via the return fuel line) and fresh Diesel in and while this is happening you have a car running beside boosting the battery up

Started in about 15 seconds and drove 25km home until I could drain the tank and fill with Fresh Diesel I guess the same would work for a holed tank provided you stop and refill the can every 40 km :oops2:

When you run out of spokes.
 

In 2012 I broke 120 spokes on my 1910 FN riding it from Nepal to Belgium. First repair was done by a guy who cut the ends and bent them to suit. Then, when no more were available, I had about 50 broken spokes welded together to make new ones. They didn't look pretty but they got me from Pakistan to the Czech Republic where I managed to buy new ones.

see on my website: Old Bloke on a Bike

And in the 80s when an airline broke on our Honda GoldWing in South America, my wife flagged down a passing truck and offered to buy the guy's aerial. He broke it in half and said, "Medio para tu, medio para me," (half for you and half for me). The aerial was still working as a replacement years later when I sold the bike.

Ducati electric bodge
 

Back in the early 80's I had a GTS 860 Duke. This was a time when they were notorious for awful electrics. True to form, I was on a trip round Scotland with my sister on the back, out on some remote country lane, when suddenly everything went ominously silent. Somehow I just 'knew' what it was (spending time poking around maintaining one's own bike pays off) and with the aid of some silver paper and duct tape, I had found and repaired the broken wire in the headlight nacelle and we were off again. She was mightily impressed (as was I secretly). :clap:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8569/...fc34d82b_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7283/...21e49cf3_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7645/...2f556f0b_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7287/...14485658_b.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8741/...5e6643dc_b.jpg

I recently found a lovely little sheep track above Aysgarth. This had less than lovely gravel on a corner and a bit of ham-fisted riding got me highsided at about 15 mph. Having picked myself up and got the bike upright I had two minutes to calm down then decided what to do. The brake lever was rideable, who needs more than 2 inches to get a couple of fingers on. The footpeg was less great, no fun getting off the hill and 50 miles home holding a leg up. The brain that had held onto the clutch as the back wheel locked and threw me off then decided to start working. The pillion pegs fasten by the same pin used on the riders pegs. Knock off the circlip, pull out the pin, fit the pillion peg in the riders position and bar sorting the mirrors out it’s off home for a bath to get the “farming by-product” off, pain killers and something to settle the nerves.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...804_174943.jpg

The next problem is work. It’s going to take 2 working days to get Guzzi parts (you’ve got to love Fowlers in Bristol when it all goes to plan) and plod, who hangs about pointing his laser at commuters, can get arsey about missing bits especially safety stuff . The peg is easy, epoxy, clamp up for an hour, refit, good as new. The brake lever is not going to glue. So, find a drill and the baleing wire and do some stitches of the type last seen on Frankenstein’s monster to hold the glue. Bandage with electrical tape and we have a lever that’s good to go.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x...804_172448.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x...804_174136.jpg

Lessons learned for a longer rip would be:
1. Get brain sorted regarding clutch.
2. Replace the pin and circlip arrangement on the pegs with bolts and nylocs if at all appropriate. Getting circlips off is easy, back on not so.
3. Baleing wire, epoxy and tape are the bodgers friend.
4. Carrying a small drill bit or two may not be the overkill it seems. Borrowing a hand drill would make this repair easy. Given enough time waiting at the side of the road you might even bore the holes by hand, the brake lever material is soft alloy.

Andy

So, I'm accelerating on a ramp onto a motorway and the chain cuts, I manage to find a nice paved spot to stop and walk back to find my chain, happy that I was carrying a spare link, as Im walking back to the bike I find a piece of carpet, great to kneel on and spread out my tools, and then I find a large towel, even better, now I can wipe the grease off my hands when I finish the job.
All went well, and I was soo pleased with myself till I wiped my hands on the towel, it had been rolled up and was full of vomit:oops2:

sorry no usefull info here

clutch lever
 

busted it this week in the mountains. 50 km from home base vise grips save the day and every day if there is one tool you should carry this would be it and zip ties/tie wraps I removed the cable from the handle bar end and attached it to basicly the handle bare mount and pulled the clutch cable aft with the vise grip
although it was quite nerve racking driving in city traffic at 5 o'clock rush hour in Valledupar Colombia with this set up.i never stalled once and wish man was made with 3 hands, one especially to finger the bastards behind me honking there horns a handy capped motorcycle in Colombian cities is not fun

For future reference, there's a big difference between fingering someone and giving them the finger. You might want to be careful with that one.

ok you may be shot in Texas or any good ole redneck state in USA

Why do the latinos use there horn. any driver from any civilized country knows why they have a horn and use it accordingly not because of aggression
on one job we were on in colombia we used a taxi from the hotel to the airport and back after the flights we used the same operator every day I would count how many times he honked in 1.5 km it was usually 15 so that's 30 times in 3 km. So the trip was 10000 pesos , I said to the Taxi driver lets make a deal he said what kind of deal, I said I would give you 15 thousand pesos if you can drive to the airport with out using your horn,But every time you use your horn I will deduct 1000 pesos he agreed and off we went , we arrived and he owed me 1000 pesos he used his horn 16 times
my Colombian - Brazilian co workers were killing themselves laughing as I was trying to get a thousand pesos from this taxi driver.
I ended up paying the regular fare 10000. the return to hotel trip he never honked his horn he knew it was not necessary A horn doesn't improve traffic flow

We've gone from fingering to excessive horn ... the reputation for passionate Latin@s is well deserved, it seems

mysterious clutch repair
 

Just read this baffling bodge in a report on Gunbarrel Highway.

... we devised a strategy for self-rescue.
We laid the [DR650 rental] on its side and removed the clutch without letting any sand into the engine. We then took a metal plate, cut it in half, folded it over and replaced it, then topped up the oil. Bingo! We had an operational Suzuki again. The question was how long for?

What do you think it means?
They bent one of the metal clutch plates in half and stuck it back in?

Did they say what the problem was in the first place?

Fried clutch I presume (rental bike; sandy tracks in WA).
Someone suggested it locks the clutch solid which is a sort of solution.

Assuming they mean not actually cut into 2 pieces but just score it then fold into a 'C' semi circle, would that jam a clutch?
But if the plates are slipping then they're slipping.

I read it as a metal plate that you can eat off.

Me too initially, but that's even more baffling.

The more you think about it the weirder it gets ... I guess if a clutch plate was doubled over the whole thing would be misaligned which might cause it to jamb enough to be useable (?) afterwards I imagine the whole basket would be knackered though.

Not a bike repair, but half way through a month-long trip, as I checked into a small rural Swiss pub as my overnight stay, I found that my riding pants had ripped at the seam. Right on the buttcrack.

Solution? A couple of layers of black gaffer tape. Got me as far as the nearest Detlev Louis store on the back side of Austria, and having not found anything appealing in their stock, it actually got me all the way back home to Estonia without too much embarassment.

Nice choice of words, very appropriate.

Getting home from a day trip
 

Sidecar day trip with my grandson. He loves sidecar excursions. Got to the lake, an hour plus from home, and I had a flat on the sidecar wheel. No problem, I carry a tube, tools, jack, and a pump. Opening the toolbox - no tire irons. No cell phone service, my sat tracker was at home, no chance of rescue, we're on our own.

A sidecar specific tire has a fairly stout sidewall, making for extra struggle when removing the tire. Fortunately, I was able to get one side of the tire bead broken and removed using a single sided spanner, a box wrench, and a screwdriver. The tire, being warm, was an asset. The spanner and box wrench served as tire irons, the screwdriver helped drop the bead into the rim channel. The task of installing the new tube and prying the tire back on the rim took longer than usual, using these tools. A pinched tube was not an option.

Well done! (I would have definitely pinched the tube, lol)

Moral: Install all your new tires yourself and do the install with the tools you carry on your motorcycle. It keeps one in practice and over time makes one better at the job (and skilled, aka lucky enough to successfully improvise). That means you have to buy a balancer, or have a shop balance your tires.

Yeah, practice makes perfect ... when I was riding trials regularly I could swap the soft-sidewalled tires with ease, but it's been a little while now and the last tyre I tried to change myself had a hard sidewall and I just pinched the tube without thinking :innocent:

I need to practice more.

Couldn't you have just "flown" the chair home? Grandson would have loved it. Mother of grandson might have been less impressed :D