Friday Fun Poll: Things go wrong. At times, i've had to resort to using:
 

Sometimes you have to toss the latex gloves, spotless overalls, high-zoot lighting and attack something that's gone horribly wrong.
Most times, that includes using the absolutely wrong tools for the job.
We've all been there. What's the worse boogering up job you've done?

I had a Taco 100 minibike for the pre-license years. Had to put a large nail in the centrifugal clutch to lock it up when it died. Had to be careful not to hug the side of the minibike with the right knee to avoid the nailhead spinning in a circle...

lotsa duct-tape & bondo to rebuild a R100RS fairing on a x-c trip. lasted from CA to CT just fine. that was due to inattentiveness on the road.
ingeniously, my buddy & I got his spark plug stripped 1150RT from IND to CO with parts of a rubber boot, a piece of fiberglass board, and a repositioned hiway peg mount. awesum!

I've got both my rear blinkers zip-ties on right now until I can find the proper screws. ;)

I have to vote with Highlander179: you forgot zip-ties, tywraps, or whatever you want to call them. One of the 7 Wonders of the Technical World.

finished an enduro once by sealing my punctured 2 stroke oil reservoir with duct tape. then there was the Hot Dog award for using a vice grip to replace my sheared off clutch lever.

I used chewing gum for a year to hold the driver's side wind deflector on my dodge ram on; it came loose on a hiway trip, I reached up and stuck some gum in between it and the sheetmetal so it wouldn't flap itself into oblivion and forgot about it until the detail shop pointed it out to my wife......

How come I only get to vote once. I've used all of these at some point in time.

Once when my VF Interceptor wouldn't start I was looking through the electical system and found the previous owner used the foil wrapper from a stick of gum for the main fuse. It ran another 20,000 miles that way.

Yeha, my sentiment exactly ...

Vice Grips, check
easyout, check
pipe wrench, check
flaming torch, check (does 1000w heat gun count too?)
slightly-smaller-than-described breaking bar, check
tap & die set, check
Bondo, check
duct tape, doubel check

Maybe we should have voted on the one item you've NOT used while wrenching. :D

Wood screws for a flat tire on the road. I carry a pill bottle of assorted sizes. They work great. Forgot I put one in once and rode on it for a couple of weeks.

But Brad, I didn't see hammer. Or using the wrong tool as a hammer. That's my biggest fault. I definitely believe in the 'bigger hammer' theory.

...yeah, and whaddabout beer?...beer'll fix it...

my fault, i was in a hurry when i wrote it, having just snapped the head off a bolt and left the threads of a steel bolt inside a soft aluminum casing.
aarrggghhhhhhh.
a chisel, drill and easy-out later, and it's still sitting there mocking me.

and yea, i left a few things off, like hammer, zip-ties, bungees and the like.


(must admit, it's the first time i've snapped a bolt head off when removing the bolt, not from over-tightening).

All of the above and then some...

If I can't fix it with my tool kit, I usually use my feet.













..as in pushing the bike or walking back to town.

About a month ago I suspended the rear of a 900 monster Duc in the air, using a tree and rope to remove the tireand wheel to replace a broken chain and disfigured rear sprocket. Also had to bring out a 3 lb hammer to do some body work on the tweaked swingarm.

1. To replace a busted terminal on my Aprilia's starter we welded in a bolt.

2. So I was really excited when my Ohlins forks arrived for said Aprilia. I didn't have a front-end stand so I was using a car jack under the header(Pitbull under the swingarm). Now unlike my Triumph it has a fuggin heavy ass muffler on one side which made it want to fall over so I used the front wheel as a brace under the pipe to stop it from falling over. Oh yeah, its also front heavy enough (or the jack was too far back) that the carjack was lifting up the back as well so I had about 50#s of tool boxes resting on the passenger seat to solve that problem.

:D

Ummm, how come I don't fire extinguisher? My '04 R1100s caught fire...

Bailing wire to hold the left muffler on my '78 Triumph Bonnieville after the passenger peg which was supposed to hold it vibrated off.

These are all very sad stories. but interesting.

all of the above and much more, except prayer. I've used a plumbing expansion plug to replace a missing oil filler cap on my old goldwing. on the same trip, i replaced a broken thermo switch with a toggle switch. zip ties and duct tape on track bikes to get em through tech. pieces of wire in lieu of fuses. to change a rear tire on the S with out the centerstand or a lift, I've tipped it onto the right side head. vice grips and easy outs on rounde off bolts. Used a vice grip for a couple years to hold together a broken throttle linkage on a '67 Ford F-100 that I had in college. I had a rule for cages to never spend more on repair than what I spent on the purchase. got the truck for $200, so that limited repairs considerably.
Lance

All the above ... and then some.

One humorous story 'tho:

Chasing District 26 Expert low-plate-numbers in the early '70's meant earning points from most-if-not-all venues: oval track, TT, desert, MX, X-country, hillclimb, etc.

The DKW was a capable machine for most. It sported the Earls front suspension, (leading link, BMW uses a variation of this design). This is important later.

Late season Northern Utah flat-track, Heat 1. I never could get the timing down for the flag start, (usually mid-pack turn one). A few laps in, reeling in #3, going wide in a sweeper, a Bultaco with a stuck throttle, T-bones me.

You know how it is; everyone is in hurry to get back on and get back to business. Not me. The front rim was folded like a taco around the front shocks.

To CARRY the the the thing back to the pits was one thing, finding a wheel to make Heat 2 was another.

The Earls front axle has back-nutted studs in the hub, (NOT a long-shouldered bolt that passes through holes in the bottom of fork legs). The studs slip fore-aft into a C-boss on the bottom link. Machined-shouldered female nuts fill space between the C and the studs.

The guy next to my pit had spare rim-tyre set ups, Bultaco I think, and offered one.

Just in time for the flag: (since we could'nt use a regular axle): We cut a piece of all-thread for a through bolt, which of course, was NOT the same thread as the special nuts. We lashed the all-thread into the C-boss with 2 feet of wire. Imagine a pencil tied perpendicular in the crotch of a 22mm end wrench. Tied off the brake backing plate so it would'nt break anything, (couldn't use the stays or control linkage). Then one lap through the pits just to see if it would stay there.

Although I was proud of my McGiver-ed axle set-up; I middle-packed Heat 2 and didn't make the Main.

A Bultaco love-hate relationship has existed ever since.

I made a jumper for my computer once out of Aluminum foil. Worked great for several years.