Wall of Dumb-ass /WTF Images....

Once upon a time in my youth, I was working on a transmission from an MG Midget. There is this certain gear shaft that has a flat on it; that is, the end of the shaft is D shaped rather than round. There is a small cast aluminum (al-you-mineum) cover that bolts over the end of the shaft. The cover has a corresponding D flat, so that when buttoned up, the shaft will not turn.

I was working nights and sleeping far too little. I started bolting that little cover on, and noticed that the bolts were tightening up before the cover mated with the case. Must be crud in the threads think I, so wrench a bit harder. SNAP! :pinch: Cover broken.

I get on the phone to order another from the stealership. A couple of weeks later, I make the 200 mile round trip to retrieve the part. I go out to the garage and procede to do EXACTLY the same thing again. :pinch: :blush:

The third time I managed to get it right.

This has been posted before but its worth a laugh at my expense. If I only had pics.


When I was a teenager I had a Suzuki GT550 three cylinder two stroke. I had pulled the carbs to clean them, being a teenager that was a daunting task. The throttle cable on that bike had a funky setup compared to the KZ's. It had one cable that turned into three, the carbs had slides with each cable coming out of the slide and going into a piece of plastic that tied into the one cable coming from the handlebars.
I lived in a residential neighborhood with typical small lot, block houses. If looking down my driveway towards the house across the street there was a 9 inch curb that was rounded instead of the square kind. My neighbor across the street was the kind that kept an immaculate St. Augustine yard that was as green as a golf course.
When I tried kickstarting the bike after my teenage tweaking of the carbs I could not get it to fire. I checked everything, had spark, had fuel, still I could not get it to fire. I had watched my older brother push start his bike when he was having problems, so I figured that was what needed to be done. So I pushed the bike to the top of the driveway and then pushed my ass off. As I jumped on the bike I figured it took to much time to mount the bike the right way so I mounted her sidesaddle so I would still have a little speed and momentum. After all that I forgot to turn on the key, so it was back to the top of the driveway for another go of it. This time the bike fired. The bike took off so fast when it fired up that I did not have time to react. The throttle was stuck wide open and I was sidesaddle, I did'nt have a chance in hell. All I could do was hang on for a nano second, then I had to bale off it. When the bike hit the rounded curb in front of my neighbors house with his pristine grass, it went AIRBOURNE straight for his front door with the throttle wide open. The bike flew about 25 feet before touchdown and destroyed my neighbors lawn and broke a sprinkler head. I had the wide crashbars that stuck way out from the motor, the crash bars peeled his beautiful grass like a sod cutter. When this happened my first instinct was to run in my house and hide somehow, even though the bike was laying in his yard on the side running wide open with his broken sprinkler shooting 50 feet in the air. I was so embarrassed. Of course I had to go get the evidence out of my neighbors yard and somehow thought I could do it without him seeing me. He was out the door before I could even think what I was to do. I do not pushstart sidesaddle any more. My best friend to this day brings this up when we are having a few cold ones, and that was 30 years ago.

on my first 650 head swap, i was tightening the cams up when i heard a loud snap.
i dropped one of the little cam chain idler gear rubbers under the cam saddles somehow and it snapped the intake cam in half.
to this day i still for the life of me can't figure out how the cam snapped instead of the holes stripping out.

kawsakiman wrote:

on my first 650 head swap, i was tightening the cams up when i heard a loud snap.
i dropped one of the little cam chain idler gear rubbers under the cam saddles somehow and it snapped the intake cam in half.
to this day i still for the life of me can't figure out how the cam snapped instead of the holes stripping out.

Cams are very hard, hence very brittle. They can take a good amount of torque because they're ductile in the middle. But they aren't designed to take any bending load outside of what the cam chain exerts.

Kawickrice wrote:

This has been posted before but its worth a laugh at my expense. If I only had pics.


When I was a teenager I had a Suzuki GT550 three cylinder two stroke. I had pulled the carbs to clean them, being a teenager that was a daunting task. The throttle cable on that bike had a funky setup compared to the KZ's. It had one cable that turned into three, the carbs had slides with each cable coming out of the slide and going into a piece of plastic that tied into the one cable coming from the handlebars.
I lived in a residential neighborhood with typical small lot, block houses. If looking down my driveway towards the house across the street there was a 9 inch curb that was rounded instead of the square kind. My neighbor across the street was the kind that kept an immaculate St. Augustine yard that was as green as a golf course.
When I tried kickstarting the bike after my teenage tweaking of the carbs I could not get it to fire. I checked everything, had spark, had fuel, still I could not get it to fire. I had watched my older brother push start his bike when he was having problems, so I figured that was what needed to be done. So I pushed the bike to the top of the driveway and then pushed my ass off. As I jumped on the bike I figured it took to much time to mount the bike the right way so I mounted her sidesaddle so I would still have a little speed and momentum. After all that I forgot to turn on the key, so it was back to the top of the driveway for another go of it. This time the bike fired. The bike took off so fast when it fired up that I did not have time to react. The throttle was stuck wide open and I was sidesaddle, I did'nt have a chance in hell. All I could do was hang on for a nano second, then I had to bale off it. When the bike hit the rounded curb in front of my neighbors house with his pristine grass, it went AIRBOURNE straight for his front door with the throttle wide open. The bike flew about 25 feet before touchdown and destroyed my neighbors lawn and broke a sprinkler head. I had the wide crashbars that stuck way out from the motor, the crash bars peeled his beautiful grass like a sod cutter. When this happened my first instinct was to run in my house and hide somehow, even though the bike was laying in his yard on the side running wide open with his broken sprinkler shooting 50 feet in the air. I was so embarrassed. Of course I had to go get the evidence out of my neighbors yard and somehow thought I could do it without him seeing me. He was out the door before I could even think what I was to do. I do not pushstart sidesaddle any more. My best friend to this day brings this up when we are having a few cold ones, and that was 30 years ago.

Got a good chuckle out of this one Kawi, thanks! :laugh:

I've got enough dumbass stories to last a lifetime but somehow most of them involve atv's.

One very cold winter night on the farm when I was 16 I just got back from a party and it was 2 am which meant it was my turn to check the cattle that were calving to make sure they were ok. I started our arctic cat 500 automatic so it would warm up while I went in to change. As I always do with a carbureted fourwheeler I blipped the throttle slightly when I heard it fire to get it started. As it turns out it was so cold that the slides froze in the half throttle position and it was in high gear. it then proceeded to go screaming across the yard toward a shelter belt, hit the first row of short bushy trees, jump 15 feet into the air before it collided with a taller tree and landed on its ass end. By the time I ran down there to turn it off it was still on its ass end pointed up the tree and trying to climb it. ATV stands for all terrain vehicle, now I know, trees... are not terrain.

The other stupid one was when I was trying to start my KZ750B after a carb clean and I had the float level to low. I could have pushed it to the top of a hill and tried bump starting it or put in a new battery, but I thought it would work just as well to take a long rope and tie it to a fourwheeler. I had my buddy drive the fourwheeler while I dropped the clutch on the bike. (this was his idea and yet I'm the one on the bike proving my dumb ass status.) We made it for a mile (we shoulda known after 200 feet this won't work) before the rope cocked sideways on the triple tree flipping the bike. I was now caught halfway under a bike that was being drug behind a noisy fourwheeler. My buddy still swears that he couldn't hear me but I'm pretty sure he could and just thought dragging me another 10 feet would be funny.

A long time ago in a far away place I took a CB250 head apart and ground in new valves. Had to take the motor out of the frame to do this Put it all back together and put the motor back in the frame. I spent the next 2 days trying to stsrt it and it just would'nt go.

Convincd I had done something wrong with the valve timing I took the motor back out of the frame, took the head apart again and reassembled. Couldn't find anything wrong. One of the last things to do was connect up the electrics to the coils and it was at that point I had my OMG moment. If only I had connected the wires the other way around the first time. Of course it started first kick .

If only I was'nt so dumb and had connected the coil wires correctly the first time !

This is a good time to tell on Gringo since he won't say a word.

Andy was working on a 650 trying to get it to start. He had the bike on the front porch and the bike back fired and he had a small fire to put out.

He brought the bike to the meet at Mid ohio and asked me to look at it. I hit the starter and the bike tried to start.

We were using a temporary tank and i just reached up and reversed the coil wires and it fired right up.

You should have seen the look on his face.

He bought me and Jamies Dinner. Roy

The Gringo wrote:

roy-b-boy-b wrote:

TerryK wrote:

I got married.





KIDDING HONEY!! (please don't kill me!)

:laugh: :laugh:

Andy still has not mentioned the fire on the front porch. Roy

Roy I never mentioned it because I didn't set the front porch on fire. I think you are referring to the time I caught a puddle of gas on fire when that 650 SR backfired but that was on the front walk leading up to the house.:laugh: Good thing I had a hose handy.:blush:

Roy you are too late I did fess up a couple of days ago, you must have missed the post above.

Oh well, I don't catch everything. :blink:

Hows the "X" ? Roy

roy-b-boy-b wrote:

Hows the "X" ? Roy

Dunno, Don't care. Just so she's not here bothering me anymore.

they are x's for a reason aren't they, roy.