Your moto wrenching mess ups.

More of long term ones

- Leaving filter oil in plastic container for years so it evaporates, progressively oiling filter with thicker oil making the bike run worse & worse.
- Reading the tire pressure should be 14psi (Keefer), not realising this meant when tyre was warm. So it was 16-17psi around the track and bike felt super harsh.

Set my freshly oiled air filter on fire by fucking around heating up my grip tape.

Read torque specs wrong on front sprocket bolt. Snapped that baby off flush. I peed a little when I started to see it come out with the ez out. 

Doing regular maintenance then proceeded to get into a heated exchange with the ol lady. Didnt put oil back into the back.  Guess how long your bike will run at the track with no oil in it?  About two turns...yeah.  Uh huh.

Cam, valves, head, crank, etc...about a $2500 arguement. Doh!

Left a blue paper towel in the intake, which proceeded to make its way into the valve train. Surprised the bike started. It was a mess. Pulled what material I could out of the intake and just ran it. 😁

Forgot to tighten my axle nut. Something felt funny.

Oh boy. I got one. Keep in mind I've been doing higher end fabrication and welding for quite a while, I've done about everything you can do on a MX bike. 

It was a 2013 KTM 250sx. I was getting the frame powder coated white. I noticed this bracket near the head tube that looked like something you would bolt a brace to, had two 6mm bolts sticking out.. Assumed it was something used on the XC models.

Cut it off. Get the frame back from powder, built the bike up and noticed  the forks were hitting the radiators ????? I had cut the steering stop off! 

First time rebuilding a two stroke motor - crank rolled off the workbench onto the floor. It looked fine, and it was put in. The rm250 felt like a Harley when it started up. 

Dam brother did you have to weld them back on and re powder the frame?

Major fuck up Back in my racing a 125 & 250 days in 1981

Filled both bikes up and took the 250 out 1st. 10-15 minutes it started rattling bad so back to the truck. Hopped on the 125 and about 20 minutes on it it too started rattling bad.

I forgot to mix the oil in the gas so trashed 2 cranks, main bearings and top ends.

holy shit this one is bad😂

Forgot to tighten my rear axle nut once at Southwick (it was no fun pushing my KX250 back to the truck), and most recently I overtightened the float bowl drain nut on my old CRF250X and caused it to crack, which resulted in a slow fuel leak.

I learned my lesson - Neither of these things will ever happen again! 🙂

Installing the front wheel on a KTM. I tightened the throttle-side pinch bolts first (the side that you’re supposed to tighten last so that the axel can float during adjustment). Anyway, it caused me to over torque the front axle nut and I roached the wheel bearings and the spacer within a couple rides. 

I’ve also installed the directional front tire backwards on more occasions than I’d prefer to admit.

pinched 3 tubes in thirty minutes and the tire iron ended up in the drywall like a dart.

Back in 2002 I got my first new bike, a RM125. I was 14 and pretty decent at doing regular maintenance like air filters, tires and oil. I got side tracked while changing the oil and never put any in. Went to the practice track the next day and not long in to the first session the clutch started feeling weird. I came in and my dad pulled the cover and she was bone dry. Ooops. Luckily we just added oil and all was back to normal. 

I can relate all too well. Brings back memories of me and my pops wrenching in the garage late at night. 

 I have plenty of screw ups but this one was just sort of funny and semi related.

 Me and a buddy were prepping a bike for a desert race and were struggling with mounting the Mousse inserts.  He sends me to the store for more KY and supplies to lube the inserts. 

So I roll up to the counter with a couple tubes of KY, a box of rubber gloves and a 12 pack of beer. The funny part was that I was thinking motorcycles and I didn't realize till like a day later why everyone in line and the cashier were looking at me so funny. Hahahahaha

Having too many adult beverages while rebuilding my fork i installed the oil seals upside down.

I’ve had several Moto-related ones…but they pale in comparison to one from my Harley.

For background, I’ve done all my own engine work since I started riding around age 12. One of dad’s stipulations was that I’d work on my own bike. I’ve rebuilt 2 and 4-strokes, and several engines for my 69 Camaro when I had it.

I say all that to say that when I decided to change the cam in my Harley to something a bit less sewing-machine like (M8 engine…no chop…on a Harley?!), it seemed like an easy swap. And it was, right up until I went to pull the inner cam bearing. The puller popped in like it’s supposed to…or so I thought, as it should have popped twice (once into the bearing, once out the back side). 

I began tightening, only to hear a crunch…which was the bearing cage shattering and the needle bearings coming apart.

Where did they go? Glad you asked. About half the bearings came out with the puller. The other half, and parts of the cage? Out the back, into the crankcase. 

IOW, my 2-3 hour cam swap now became a complete engine removal and teardown. Yay me.

My wife happened to come in the garage right after the bearing came apart. She said “you don’t look good.” I replied “I don’t feel good.” 😂

new bike, greased everything and changed springs. left top shock bolt loose. bike became low rider in a sand whoop section. wont do that again
 

When I was 17 I raced a nail of an RM250 that blew itself up and dropped bits into the gearbox. Took ages getting the money for parts and finally got all the bits a couple of days before a race. My Dad spent hours carefully rebuilding the engine for me and we both cheered when it fired second kick.

Went to try it out and realised it wouldn't change gear - a selector had been put in the wrong way round. Total strip down into the early hours while I tip-toed round my Dad in case I tipped him over the edge and he set fire to the bike lol 😄

Another one was when I had been out the night before and hadn't prepped the bike before a race, so I oiled the filter at the track and somehow lost the long filter cage bolt.

Had to fit the filter by heavily greasing the face to make it "stick" then holding it in with a bungee cord across it, hooked in the airbox. Luckily it wasn't dusty..

Yep, typical dumb teenager.

I once changed the oil filter and reused the o-ring, pinched it, and didn’t realize until I started it up at the track. Oil started to seep pretty fast. I had a condom in the truck and cut the sleeve off, rolled it up to be a little closer to o-ring thickness, and swapped that out on the oil filter cover. Held snug for the rest of the day. 

The frame had a gusset overlay (doubled up) in that area. I ended up making a pretty slick stainless steel version of the original, drilled / tapped and fastened it. 

That's funny! You were a bag of zip ties and Skittles away from glory!

When I was younger, did a full engine rebuild, left a couple of those blue shop paper towels under the cylinder that i had put there to catch the wrist pin circlip as I was installing the piston, forgot they were there and pushed the cylinder down and about 5mins into the initial run it locked the engine up. Basically needed another full rebuild, crank, cylinder, piston.

Left a paper towel on top of the piston on my 125  put everything back together and wouldn't kick over . Then I remembered what I did at 3am , ah 2 strokes easy fix 

Did a 2 day race at Starvation Point in the 90's and on Sunday morning changed my air filter and put the seat on. Ran down to riders meeting came back hopped in my gear and head to the gate, 1/2 a lap in I look down and my seat was gone. I had forgot to put the bolts back in the seat!

I was doing valves on my V-twin Aprilia street bike and when putting the cam cap back on, which is similar to a dirtbike where one cap holds both cams, I guess I didn't quite have one of the dowel locator pins quite seated and when I torqued it down it cracked the whole cam cap in half. 

Got on ebay that night and miraculously found one parted out and bought a new head and just used the cam cap off of it, which isn't ideal as they are bored together usually but it went another 10k miles before I sold it. 

Those first couple rides I had my fingers over that clutch waiting for it to lock up lol. 

HOF Thread LOL.