Inspired by the Itchy Boots thread, whats the most daft non-breakdown you've ever had?

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For me it's a coin flip between:
Pushing a Bandit a mile through central London, during summer, after the engine cut out at a traffic light. It turned out I'd caught the kill switch without noticing.
Or:
Nursing a very sick CBF250 home after dropping it, unable to use more than a quarter throttle. The rag I kept under the seat had got sucked into the air intake when it was on it's side.

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FreeBSD fan since before it was cool ...

Again a choice of two. First up, a few years back my ancient B120 Suzuki two stroke cut out completely when I was entering a roundabout on a trip from Oxford down to Devon. I spent a good ten minutes trying to work out what was wrong. There was no spark and I was at the stage of taking the engine covers off to check the points (remember them !). In the process I noticed the ignition switch was turned off. On the B120 it’s set into the side panel and my boot had caught the key as I changed down.

Hmm, second example seems to have self edited upon posting. Probably just as well really it wasn’t that funny

I can feel it. I had a Suzuki A50 with the ignition key in the same spot….

Anyhow - I wouldnt call it a breakdown but. When I was about to set off on my RTW trip I had a local mechanic halping me setting up the bike and mounting some extra stuff on the bike. The bike came with original sidepanniers but they were to small and I bought some bigger ones and had those mounted. Not only were the new panniers bigger and wider - they also sat further out from the bike. And the result was that the rear end of the bike became quite much wider than with original panniers.

Then there is this shortcut to where I lived. Coming from the south and the east towards where I lived there is a perfectly good vehicle road but it was blocked off for through traffic because the neighbours were pissed off by the noise and traffic. And it was blocked off by huge solid stone blocks. However it was enough space between those stone blocks for a bike with panniers, at least the old narrower original panniers.

I wouldnt ride through this shorcut in broad daylight as it would probably piss off the neighbours. But late at night it didnt matter that much so at such occations I used to take this shortcut.

Now this day I was at the mechanic and we worked on the bike until almost midnight and we also mounted these new bigger and wider panniers. I was very tired after 13-14 hours in the garage and rode home past midnight - and of course I took the shortcut and came through the hole in the stone barriers as I had done many times before. But this time I couldnt get through, the wider panniers scraped against the right side stone barrier and throwed the bike towards the left and ripped the left pannier off and sent me and the bike tumbling over. Luckily I only got a few bruises but the left pannier was rioped off the frame and the the attachment point was also ripped off.

I had to carry the pannier by hand the last hundred meters home and in the morning I had to call the mechanic and ask if he could help me weld the pannier attachment back and help me straitening out the bent pannier and frame as I was to start my long trip the next day. Luckily he said yes albeit laughing his ass off from my misfortune.

But when lying halfway under my bike with a painful knee and wounds here and there and a ripped off brand new pannier at 00.30 at night 1,5 days before I was to start my big trip because the distance between the stone blocks on the shortcut road was just ok with the smaller and narrower original panniers but definetively not with bigger and wider panniers - wasnt a very pleasant feeling….

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

By far and away, losing the key to my old HISS-equipped VFR800 VTEC.

I'd bought the bike with a single key, and knew that was not a good situation to be in, so one of the first things I'd done was go to get a new key cut. Easy enough - but this was the first time I'd encountered an immobilizer-equipped radio key, so the new one was just a regular blank; it would turn the ignition barrel and open the seat lock perfectly well, but did not allow the engine to start. I'd begun to look into getting a new radio key, but it was a long and involved process requiring either a special dealer tool or a wire-splice hack that people on forums were describing with a not-guaranteed success rate; and I would need to get a new radio key blank to start with, these were not easily available locally.

So, at some point I lost the one working key I had. And if you know the Honda Integrated Security System, you know that in its most ridiculous early-2000s form, the bike would come from factory with two keys; and using either one of these, you could program two more; and that was it. It was integrated into the ECU, and without one of the two original keys (or if all four keys had been programmed), not even the Honda dealer or Honda factory could do anything about it.

The nuclear option was ordering a junkyard ECU from America, where the local-market Interceptor version of that bike never had HISS to start with, so it would ignore the fact that the radio receiver was not acknowledging the key. However, I got lucky, and found an eBay seller that specialized in HISS bullshit. They would go around UK junkyards, find totaled Honda bikes, pull their ECUs and existing keys, and use a donor bike in their workshop to program uncut blank radiokeys to that specific ECU. It cost me something like three hundred euros, but I had a replacement ECU and two blank radiokeys that, when placed near the ignition barrel, would allow my properly cut but non-radio copied key to start the engine!

I got as far as taking panels off a BMW at a campsite due to a kill switch alignment issue. No idea why the Bavarians used that silly twisty ear switch.

The worst wasn't mine though. XBR outfit on a snowy car park 150 miles from the Elefant Rally. Driver says it has spark but won't turn over. He kicked it and kicked it, we pushed it for multiple bumps. All getting up a sweat and therefore freezing for the rest of the day. Started fine when they key was turned fully

Andy

I had a Fiat car from around the same time that had a similar system. Red keys for everyday use and a blue master key. Lose the blue key and it’s new ecu time. We never got the blue key from the dealer (and yes it was a new car). By the time we worked out we should have had it (months later) they ‘couldn’t help’. Every time it needed work doing on it (a lot being a Fiat) we had to tell who was doing it (not the supplying dealer!) do not disconnect the battery. When the battery eventually packed up I had to rig up some kind of permanent jump lead assembly to make sure the connection wasn’t broken. Fortunately it went in the scrappage scheme back around 2010 and the dealer who took it wasn’t interested in how many keys I had. An unbelievably stupid system.

For the past week and a half I have been trying to get some signs of life from my BSA A65. Nothing works. I checked the battery - 5V (it is a 6V system). I tried starting it in emergency flat battery mode. Nothing. I don’t have a 6V charger. New battery? Nah, this one is fine, a little low, but fine - once it starts it will charge up fine. But it won’t start. Fuel - yep that’s there. Air, yep that’s there too. No spark though. I check the system - continuity where you want it and no extra, bonus earths. The wiring is almost certainly the original 1964 wiring so I expect it to fail every so often.

I trickle charge my BMW R80 from a 10W solar panel . Now, I can adjust the output voltage of that down to 4V if I want to - so I tweak it down from 14V for the R80 to 7.25V and put it on the battery for a day so that I can check out things. This evening I checked and the battery was at a better 5.9V - I decided to do the normal attempt at a kick over just to prove that there was still a problem. It started third kick. Unfortunately it was too late to go for a ride - 6V electrics don’t make for bright lights even when converted to LED. Tomorrow is going to be wet. Again.

I am going to get either another solar panel so that I can trickle charge both the BMW and the BSA or another voltage regulator so that I can have one solar panel and have two different voltages.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Setting off on a planned long trip on my 790 Adventure, I decided I didn't want to risk being stranded with a broken sidestand cutoff switch, so I fitted the shorting link from Vanasche. Riding to the port, the bike developed an intermittent but severe misfire with the engine management light coming on. I stopped in a layby, checked the OBD which said something like "weak off-idle mixture," took off all the engine shields and tank to check all the connections, to no avail.

Got relayed home after a fraught trip halfway round the M25 London orbital, and the dealer diagnostics gave a different result - yup, the POS sidestand dongle was faulty. Oddly enough with no "side stand" warnings on the bike instrument. Lesson learned, sometimes Mr KTM really does know best.

Giving money to a Ducati dealer - never again!

Installed some LED auxiliary lights on the hand guards. Routed the wiring cleanly along the handle bars, past the ignition barrel and the frame to a relay under the seat so they would turn off with the ignition. They worked fine after the install.

First ride after the install, I turn the bike on, turn the lights on and set off. No issues at all. After the first stop I turn the bike back on to be greeted with a shiny EWS error from the ECU. Bike won't even crank over.


After a long frustrating and ultimately useless diagnostics, I decide it's best to turn those LEDs off as not to drain the battery. I turn the key back off and on and lo and behold the error is gone.


Turns out the wiring from the LEDs messes with the signal from the key to the pickup antenna in the ignition barrel. The ECU decides it's a fake key and refuses to start the bike.

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Belgium to Nordkapp via Iran | Discover Overland | Destination World

Fuel Tap say no more

Single ignition key scenario; Riding home in the dark after a long day with only 100 miles left. No moon, no city lights anywhere, absolutely black; needed to "relieve myself". Do I wait until I get home or make a quick on the side stop? No traffic for a long time, I decided on the latter. Pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the ignition, and the key caught on my glove and pulled out. I heard, klang against metal, several clicks against plastic, but no bonk on the tarmac. It took me 15 minutes to locate the key in the fairing using my cell phone flashlight.

All these stories about keys reminds me of an afternoon 40+ years ago, we were en-route to a motorbike rally and almost there, about 120 miles from home, when we rain into some serious rain. As we were pulling to a stop under a motorway bridge I was doing a mental check of where are the over-suits? left hand pannier. Which pocket are the pannier keys in? None of 'em, they're still sat in the rain channel on the roof of my girlfriends car; oh bugger!
The girlfriend, now wife was not best pleased and we even had to borrow a tent for the night as parts of that were locked in those panniers too.
It did at least confirm the quality of Craven's high-security locks, other than destruction, nobody could get them open and none of the dozen or more other Craven keys would open them.

Can't say I'd have used the words Craven and high security locks much in the same sentence. I used them a lot back in the day and still have two sets of panniers. Fastening a bungee elastic around them probably adds a level of security the original catches could never match.