How not to be a menace to your motorcycle

He shouldn't have rushed to complete a repair. 
(Uncredited cartoon from Motorcycle Timeline)

 My recent blog item about damaging my Royal Enfield in the process of trying to fix it reminded reader Maynard Hershon about a piece he wrote for motorcycling magazines awhile ago. There are lessons in it for every motorcycle owner. Here is what he wrote: 

In July, when Tamar and I visited Bend, Oregon, we met Doug Meyer for a chat over coffee and lunch. Doug owned and operated Dublin Kawasaki (Dublin, California) before moving to Bend to work for Muzzy’s. 

At Muzzy’s, Doug developed products for their retail line and tuned Rickey Gadson’s AMA Prostar Shootout, 500hp turbo ZX-12 drag bike. Doug is a two-decades-plus veteran and record-holder at Bonneville. 

The last year or so he’s worked in the aircraft industry but he’s still riding, still eyeballs-deep in one sort of motorsport or other. He contributes to Bikeland.org; click on this to check out (for instance) Doug’s report about riding a 240-hp nitrous-kitted, Muzzy’s ZX-14. 

Doug told us he is rebuilding a ’66 Corvette. He found a clean, matching-numbers car and decided to do a frame-up, no-compromise restoration. A Corvette is a restorer’s dream, he says, because removing the fiberglass body is easy. Making that body pristine and beautiful may not be so easy. 

Expecting to have to search far and wide, he found a guy a few hours away in Gresham, Oregon, near Portland, who would prepare and paint the body. The guy, clearly a meticulous craftsman, told Doug how to deliver the body to Gresham for initial prep.

After the prep work, Doug would pick up the body, reinstall it on the chassis and deliver the rolling result to Gresham. Thus the body guy could ensure that the pieces fit precisely, perfectly.

So far, all of Doug’s work has gone smoothly. When he has reached for a wrench, it has been right where his memory said it was. Never a swearword, never a thrown tool.

In telling Tamar and me about that process, Doug left unsaid what we all know: It doesn’t always go that way.

We talked about jobs that don’t go that way. We agreed that when it doesn’t, you should place the tool you’re holding on your bench, turn and walk out of your garage or shop.

Working on our equipment when we are not 100% present and in the proper frame of mind is not fair to our mechanical consciences, to the machines or their future owners.

Doug said he did, in the course of his work, encounter one stripped fastener; it’s a 40-year old car after all. Doug knew then that the car had never fallen into the hands of an inept mechanic – or even a capable guy working on the car when he shouldn’t have.

Doug says that on the Corvette restoration websites, that guy, the nightmare previous owner, is known as Bubba. Nearly every contributor to the several forums has a Bubba story or many Bubba stories.

Careful, meticulous Corvette owners exist, no doubt. But they’re not legion. Bubba is legion... Bubba is everywhere.

Bubba, if he can’t manage to wiggle his (inappropriate) wrench into place to remove or install a universal joint, cuts access holes in the floor of the car, then glues crude patches in place to cover the holes.

Bubba Motorbiker can’t be bothered to find the proper tool. His Leatherman is so much handier. Sadly, he can locate a hex key. With it, he over-tightens small bolts that attach plastic parts to his bike, cracking gorgeous, brutally expensive pieces that were perfect, seconds before.

Bubba buys a breathtaking bike but never adjusts the chain, checks the tire pressures or pays a shop to check the valve clearances. He doesn’t adjust his shock and isn’t sure how.  

Bubba, it seems to me, is why (in this era of sophisticated, easily maintained bikes) used bikes cost so much less than new ones. Buy a new bike; it’s surely Bubba-free. A used one? Maybe it’s been owned by our friend Bubba.

As Doug told us stories about his wonderful, painstaking body man and his own relaxed, agony-free mechanical efforts, it occurred to me that Doug Meyer is the Anti-Bubba.

But Doug isn’t the ONLY Anti-Bubba. You and I can be Anti-Bubbas too. As Clint so memorably reminded us, we have to know our limits.

I didn’t always know mine. I’m confessing; I have been a Bubba. Mea Bubba. Decades ago I worked in a Honda shop in rural Indiana. Mostly I did tune-ups on Hondas, jobs that couldn’t get me into trouble.

Once my boss asked me to replace something inside the cases of a Harley-Davidson Sprint, a sweet 250 made for Harley in Italy. I got the covers off the lovely little horizontal single and replaced a shifter return spring, if memory serves.

Reassembling the engine, I got impatient and rapped on the stubborn covers with a mallet to guide them together, to "help" them fit. Maybe I warped the covers. Maybe, God Forbid, I ruined the cases.

Whatever the result, I wish I’d never gone near that bike, never had a chance to hurt it.

Had I had the Bubba chat with Doug Meyer long ago, I’d have done just what he and I agreed to do: I’d have put the mallet down. I’d have walked away from the engine, the bench and the room. My co-workers would have congratulated me for doing it.

Most of us will inevitably suffer from the labors of permanent or occasional Bubbas. Let us resolve not to cause any suffering from our own efforts.

Let us vow on our mechanical honor that we will never ever be Bubbas, cross our clumsy hearts.

NOTE: This article is not meant to reflect on individuals, motorcycle mechanics, or shops that use the name Bubba. Originally a nickname for a brother, it has come to mean "a good old boy," and can be meant affectionately or disparagingly, or, as here, both at the same time. 

I fixed my Royal Enfield until I broke it

Somehow I failed to see the throttle cable hanging loose. But what I did next was a bigger problem.

 Kids learn early to take care of their favorite toys. Parents teach us well. 

"If you break that, you won't get another," is the message a child receives when a parent wags a warning finger at misbehavior. 

Intentionally or not, they're teaching the value of things, and our responsibility for them. 

So I feel badly that I've let down my 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. It's out of commission, thanks to me. 

Always present in my mind is the knowledge that this is the way many motorcycles end up: partially disassembled for some long ago forgotten problem, a repair that was never completed, or was botched in the attempt. 

They're pushed to the side of the garage and left to rust and rot.

After my Bullet revved uncontrollably while I waited for a stop light to change, I pushed it home. 

Anxious to find the problem, I twisted the grip and found it operated.

I removed and opened the carburetor, but it showed no sign of any problem.

I examined the points and the timing and found no problem. Even the spark plug looked OK.

Stumped, I wrote the Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum, where members instantly pinpointed my problem: the throttle cable itself.

Checking it, finally, I found the outer cable loose, actually outside its housing.

While sitting stopped at the traffic light I had sensed that the idle was slightly fast, and had pulled on the throttle cable, probably dislodging the outer cable from its socket and, with the motorcycle in neutral at the stop light, the rpm had soared.

If I had only been more patient out on the road, I might have noticed the loose cable, tucked it back into its socket, and not had to push the motorcycle two miles!

Now that I knew the problem, I was impatient to effect a repair. I acted impulsively.

Instead of simply returning the cable to its socket, I figured the twist grip itself would have to come off for examination.

This was stupid: the inner cable wasn't disconnected from the twist grip; the outer cable was just dislodged from its socket on the exterior of the throttle assembly.

If only I had analyzed the problem more carefully.

To free the twist grip, I unscrewed the kill switch module and left it hanging by its delicate wires.

Then I twisted the rear brake light switch out of the brake lever pedestal, in the process breaking the delicate soldered connections to the switch.

Then I removed the rearview mirror.

Then I slackened off the front brake adjustment to free the brake cable from the lever pedestal.

Every one of these disabling steps was unnecessary and ineffectual: the throttle twist grip still wasn't free!

See, I was making two errors here: First, there had been no reason at all to remove the twist grip. Second, even if there had been, there was no need to damage the whole right handlebar control assembly to do it. 

Still more impatient now, I twisted and tugged and, finally! The twist grip suddenly came off in my hand.

What now? I don't even know what it was I did that freed it!

I now needed to put the outer cable end back into its socket (which I could have done all along) and reattach the needlessly removed twist grip. But I didn't know how to reattach the grip, since I didn't know how I'd gotten it off.

Struggling, pushing, lubricating, twisting; nothing worked. It wouldn't go back on. I was foiled.

Look around at the damage I had done:

On the workbench (or on the floor around the motorcycle) were my disassembled carburetor and the motorcycle's battery. The fuel line was off. Hanging from the handlebars were the wires and cables I'd unnecessarily broken or disconnected, erasing their proper adjustments.

I realized now that I wasn't certain how the carburetor went together. I didn't know how to adjust the front brake, or how I would fix the broken brake light wiring. (I'm the fool who had soldered the wires to the switch, not realizing that unscrewing the switch for maintenance would snap my soldering.)

I thought of all those ads I'd read over the years, for motorcycles that were in great shape, except partly disassembled by foolish owners who couldn't put them back together. Left to decay.

So is this where it could end? I ruefully imagined writing my own ad:

"For sale. My 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. High mileage but good condition. Just needs new throttle twist grip and attach carburetor and cables. Easy fix."

That won't happen to my bike, at least not yet.

I'm not giving up.

Pushing a Royal Enfield for exercise

 I'm looking at a bright red bruise on the inside of my right kneecap. 

It's just about at the level of the the chrome kickstart lever of my Royal Enfield motorcycle. There is a reason for that. 

I pushed the motorcycle home this afternoon, a little over two miles, sitting on it and propelling it along by waddling ducklike. 

I made pretty good time this way: Google maps said the walk alone would have taken 46 minutes, and here I duck-walked the 400-pound motorcycle the whole way in only an hour more.

The price paid was the bruise on my kneecap, as every so often my right leg would catch the kickstart lever where it curves out to miss the side of the motorcycle. I considered stopping and removing the lever to make my waddling less painful.

There was one good thing about the pain, however. It was forcing me to keep my feet well spread (the foot peg was the main hazard on the left side).

The great danger was that the motorcycle might tip past the point of control and fall. My wide stance prevented that.

Still, it wasn't easy, and I had to stop at a park along the way to get a drink of water from the drinking fountain. Thank goodness that fountain was there.

As usual, along the way, people would ask me how old my Royal Enfield is. I'd give my usual answer:

"Not as old as it looks. 1999. But I AM as old as I look!"

Hardly anyone seemed to take note that the motorcycle motor wasn't running, as I pushed myself along.

"You don't see many like that anymore," one man commented.

"Maybe because they don't run!" I responded.

But, oddly, I still felt complimented even though the Royal Enfield was not functioning. It's a problem with the carburetor, or the throttle cable, I believe.

I'll fix it tomorrow. I've had enough exercise for today.