Ok, time to laugh at a newb

I decided I'm gonna give you old-timers a couple good laughs at my expense. I'm new at this whole working on a motorcycle thing, so keep that in mind when you hear the gross miscalcuations I've made in the last couple of days.

DUH moment #1: I pull almost the entire wiring harness out of my bike, remove all the electrical tape and shrink wrap to try and track down a pesky short only to find that when I installed my new handlebars, I crimped the wires leading to my starter button into the clamp that holds my brake handle on, thereby grounding them directly to the handlebars. :blush:

DUH moment #2: I get everything buttoned up and get ready to put some fire in the hole for the first time in weeks. She sputters a little bit while the gas makes its way to the carbs and then all the the sudden the bike starts revving like crazy! Luckily, I regained my wits in time to hit the kill switch before the thing got a chance to redline.

While I was waiting for my hearing to come back, I thought to myself, "I guess the throttle cable goes in the first slot after all..." :blink:

Anyways, I think it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, and lord knows I get plenty of opportunities.

We've all done things like that, probably the funniest I've done was after switching motors in a car all sorts of weired things going on with the electrical. When I hit the starter, the head lights came on!!!!! Took a day to find that I'd forgotten to put the negative cable back onto the motor.(trying to ground everything through the chassis ground) duooo :blink:

Let's not forget the classic..... add oil to my bike and forget to put cap back on. Start up and watch the oil spray all over right side of bike. Amazing what 3 seconds without oil cap can do! :S

I think my worst "oh Sh@t" moment in the past few years was-I left my front M/C cap off and fired the bike up. The vibration splattered brake fluid all over my new $650 paint job. I had my head down near the motor listening to the cam chain and didn't even noticed the fluid. I'm glad I had the guy put on a ton of clear! I caught it in time and washed it off.

I'm ashamed to admit my latest DUH moment came when I was putting my relay-for-ignition-coils conversion in place.

Everything is all in place and wired up/mounted nicely except for the final hookup for the battery side of the hot wire to the coils, so obviously the bike won't run yet. This is so I can make my last checks before the final hookup and THEN actually start/run the bike.
Idiot lights and headlight/taillight work ?? Check. Starter works ?? Check. No funny smells or sparks anywhere ?? Check.
And then one of the techs walks by and says: "Ya know, I think that system will work better if you hook that main wire up to the POSITIVE battery terminal."
I had laid everything out with the main coil hot wire set to hook up to the GROUND terminal on the battery.
Well, at least he saved me an hour or two of troubleshooting. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
In the event, when I hooked up the main feed wire to the correct post on the battery, she fired up a quick as a shot. I'm a believer in this modification after seeing the difference in ease of starting.

I was installing my new Dyna ignition. Had the new plate mounted where the old timing plate used to go, and I was turning the engine over with a box-end wrench on the crankshaft nut. The engine pulled the wrench thru the compression stroke and my wrench sheared off one of the relays soldered to the circuit board.

Oh, I've done a lot of dumb ones over the years - probably the most recent was on my MGBGT. I had been checking a plug for color - went to fire up the motor and it ran like a sick pig! OH S*&t - what's wrong with it NOW? Well, the spark plug is still lying on the bench is a clue!

I regularly find myself looking for a particular wrench, or screwdriver, only to find I am holding it in my hand!:blush:

ha ha ha...all good.
Here's mine...

Just last week,I was at my buddys tattoo-shop.I had a 1 o-clock appointment to get my birthday present finished off...my buddy was running behind,and told me to come back in an hour...so I jumped on the bike and headed to Canadian Tire to do some looking around.
I get into the left-turn lane,and the bike dies...won't start,so I had to get off and push it through the intersecton,and into the parking lot.There was a guy on the corner,doing some work on the sign for Canadian Tire,and he spouts out,"Out of gas?".
I say,"Nooo,it's not out of gas",in an embarressed voice.:blush:
And it was at that exact moment that I realized...yup...you guessed it..."Turn the gas ON,you window-licker!":silly:

I've been training myself to shut the gas off when I'm parked...still in training...

Yeah, I've had my share of dumb moments.
One that still sticks out like a sore thumb was years ago at a friend of mine's house.
It came time for me to go home, but I realized I locked my keys in my pickup truck. So my buddy goes in his house and grabs a coathanger (and a couple more beers), and we start trying to pull the door locks. We were at it for about twenty minutes, and we're getting pretty frustrated. His wife comes out and asks us, "whatcha all doin"?
Her husband being a smartass says, "what's it look like we're doin"?
She studies our predicament for a minute, jumps in the back of the truck, slides my sliding rear window open and grabs the keys.
Us>>>:blush: :blush:

I had an old Yamaha DT250 when I was in high school. I rode it to work one day and when I went to start it to go home it wouldn't start. I pushed it home assumed the worst, tore down the engine, rebuilt it and it still wouldnt' run. My Dad walks up and seeing my frustration asks me if it has gas. I told him yes but after he walked away I looked and he was right I was simply out of gas. I put gas in it and it fired right up. Could have saved myself over $200.00 if I had checked the simple things first.
It's nice to see there are other members of the Dumb moments club.

riverroad wrote:

Yeah, I've had my share of dumb moments.
One that still sticks out like a sore thumb was years ago at a friend of mine's house.
It came time for me to go home, but I realized I locked my keys in my pickup truck. So my buddy goes in his house and grabs a coathanger (and a couple more beers), and we start trying to pull the door locks. We were at it for about twenty minutes, and we're getting pretty frustrated. His wife comes out and asks us, "whatcha all doin"?
Her husband being a smartass says, "what's it look like we're doin"?
She studies our predicament for a minute, jumps in the back of the truck, slides my sliding rear window open and grabs the keys.
Us>>>:blush: :blush:

DAM! :pinch:

Now THAT one hurt!

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