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MacGyver fix

  1. #1
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    MacGyver fix

    While reading SRTie4K's thread on memorable motorcycle travels I had a good laugh at Oreo's retelling of his roadside repair. It got me thinking more than a few of us have made creative "repairs". So as not to muddy that thread why not post up your tales (good and bad) of when you did a MacGyver.

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  2. #2
    Super Moderator OreoGaborio's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    I remember a bunch of us huddling around Kham's bike, zip tying his rear caliper to his swingarm cuz it either locked up, the caliper bolts backed out or or the mount snapped.

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    Last edited by OreoGaborio; 01-16-22 at 10:55 AM.
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  3. #3

    Re: MacGyver fix

    I remember on my first big tour realizing about 1000 miles in that the stock SV seat will be the end of me. Ended up going to walmart and getting a bicycle seat gel cover that helped minimize the stress.

    About 1800 miles into the tour even that wasn't enough so I ended up buying icy/hot type cream to help cope with the other 1800 mile return...

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  4. #4
    Kosher Assassin Stoneman's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Off-Road...

    The first Raptor I owned (660, forgot the year), the original owner widened the front end 6" total. Incredibly stupid thing to do for NH's bony trails, but the kid was basically the ATV version of a squid. Within the first coupla weeks, I pulled the tie-rod the out of the helm joint, bushing & all. We were quite a few miles in the woods on an extremely bony trail with quite a bit of elevation, and at least a few miles from where the tow vehicles were.

    We had a handful of cable ties, duct tape and a short length of rope. We hadn't planned on going out for long/far, so we really didn't pack much. At first, I was just gonna try to wheelie as much as I could to get out. But landing after that first wheelie pretty much said that wasn't happening. So we reapplied everything. I crept along in first gear with a buddy behind me as support while another friend rode ahead and brought a truck as close as he could. I did almost 4 miles on that bony, rocky, rutted & root strewn trail after that with no issues.

    Needless to say, that weekend I ordered the entire STOCK front end to get it back to factory width. Funniest part is a couple months later, I traded it in for the newer 700FI model and got what I paid for that 660, including returning the front end to normal!

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  5. #5
    Angry Gumball RandyO's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    My rear caliper came loose and put a big gash on the inside of the wheel, KB says he has some bubble gum, we can chew some and plug the hole, I chose to wait for a truck to come rescue me

    lost a master link, right at a stoplight, when it turned green, my chain rolled right off the sprocket, I found everything in the middle of the road except the master link retainer clip. I wrapped some copper wire, there was a motorcycle shop a half mile away

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    RandyO
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  6. #6
    TWINS! xrocket21's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    So, many years ago, I bought an aftermarket seat for my RC51, I believe from someone on here. Price was $150, I went to an ATM and got $160 in 20s. We met in a rite aid parking lot to do the transaction, and before he got there, I went in and bought an Arizona Iced Tea to break a $20.

    He got there and I brought a few tools and installed the seat. After that, I proceeded to a Subaru meet north shore. Ended up staying out late till almost 1 am. Head home and as I am coming down hill into one of the tunnels in Boston, traffic was actually somewhat heavy, and due to construction there were jersey barriers all along the road and no shoulder. So downhill into the tunnel, with traffic, no shoulder, at 1 am, the friggen bike just SHUTS OFF. I panic, pull in the clutch and start coasting. Trying to move over lanes, but no headlight, no brake light, no turn signals, I think I'm gonna die.

    I see a gap in the jersey barriers and whip the bike into it. I look into a few things and find a blown fuse. I have no spare fuses. At this point I remember the Arizona tea.... I snapped the pulltab off and broke the end off for a c-shaped piece of metal and jam that into the fuse holder and the bike starts!!! Yes!!! I start going again, but when I hit bumps the bike cuts out. So I had to hover butt it almost an hour home, but made it home.

    Turned out the new seat was causing the battery to short!!!!!

    Such a strange series of events, but so glad I had that can with me and didn't die in a Boston tunnel.

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  7. #7
    Your Father csmutty's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    My sister's GS 500E had two fuel lines going from the tank to the carb. One of the fuel lines while refueling snapped off from dry rot and started pissing gas everywhere. Was able to jam a stick into the fuel line which kept it from leaking as I rode it 10 miles back home. Called it the stick mod.

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  8. #8
    Angry Gumball RandyO's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Quote Originally Posted by csmutty View Post
    My sister's GS 500E had two fuel lines going from the tank to the carb. One of the fuel lines while refueling snapped off from dry rot and started pissing gas everywhere. Was able to jam a stick into the fuel line which kept it from leaking as I rode it 10 miles back home. Called it the stick mod.
    I've seen that before, but more often to plug a vacuum line

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    RandyO
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  9. #9
    Lifer
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Day 2 into of an epic 10 day tour up and down the East coast I decide I have had enough banking and cranking for the day and volunteer to ride sweep for the group after lunch. Tip into a modest corner at a moderate, maybe 40MPH the front end just vanishes from under me. Bike and I slide, spinning for 100' or so. I do an expert level baseball slide, jump to my feet unharmed and run down the bike. Before the rest of the party realizes I'm gone and circles back I have the bike up and on the shoulder.

    MacGyver fix-03-jpg

    Side-case is bent up at a 90-degree angle, brake lever end is snapped off and the right side foot-peg is gone.

    MacGyver fix-04-jpg

    I find the foot peg and stuff it in my pocket. We bend the side-case back into place and secure with a strap. Utterly ashamed of myself for being "that guy" on my first big tour with riders I do not know that well, I insist I am fine and that we get going.

    I rode the rest of the day with no right foot peg. The next day we stop at Walmart and "repair" it with a generic hardware kit and some picture frame wire.
    Fix holds up for the rest of the tour.. which was fantastic. Perfect weather and nothing but miles and miles of great roads.

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  10. #10
    BMW track whore e30addict's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Quote Originally Posted by OreoGaborio View Post
    I remember a bunch of us huddling around Kham's bike, zip tying his rear caliper to his swingarm cuz it either locked up or the caliper mount snapped.
    I remember that. It wasn't the only roadside fix I've seen, but it was definitely memorable.

    Quote Originally Posted by nhbubba View Post
    Day 2 into of an epic 10 day tour up and down the East coast I decide I have had enough banking and cranking for the day and volunteer to ride sweep for the group after lunch. Tip into a modest corner at a moderate, maybe 40MPH the front end just vanishes from under me. Bike and I slide, spinning for 100' or so. I do an expert level baseball slide, jump to my feet unharmed and run down the bike. Before the rest of the party realizes I'm gone and circles back I have the bike up and on the shoulder.

    MacGyver fix-03-jpg

    Side-case is bent up at a 90-degree angle, brake lever end is snapped off and the right side foot-peg is gone.

    MacGyver fix-04-jpg

    I find the foot peg and stuff it in my pocket. We bend the side-case back into place and secure with a strap. Utterly ashamed of myself for being "that guy" on my first big tour with riders I do not know that well, I insist I am fine and that we get going.

    I rode the rest of the day with no right foot peg. The next day we stop at Walmart and "repair" it with a generic hardware kit and some picture frame wire.
    Fix holds up for the rest of the tour.. which was fantastic. Perfect weather and nothing but miles and miles of great roads.
    I may have a recollection of that one too.

    ...no one cared that you were "that guy" . Everyone was more surprised there wasn't more damage to you or the bike.

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    2012 Tiger 800 XC

  11. #11
    Senior Member MHenry600's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    June 2010, summer after graduating college. I was still trying to find a job, and since I had nothing going on I packed a bag and tent on the back of the CBR and rode up to NHMS from Springfield, MA area. Plan was to corner work for two days at a TTD.
    On day 1, someone crashed and shattered their ankle if I remember right. Since the second day was already paid, they asked around and offered it up to me.

    Second session of the morning I came into T1, made the flip for T1a and got a bit too far inside. Got on the white painted line and it was slick as hell (wasn't very warm that morning).
    Tucked the front and slid off into the grass (before it was paved over). Didn't do too much damage, except it did rip off the right foot peg.
    At this point I was more thinking about the fact I had to ride 2.5 hours back to MA that afternoon.

    Someone mentioned to see if one of the passenger pegs would fit. Not quite the same shape/size, but same pin diameter.
    Then looked for someone with a dremel.
    Cut down the back end of the peg until we could get the pin through, and that when pushing down on the peg it would mate against the bracket properly to support a load.
    Bent the brake "lever" that was left so that there was at least a little tab to push on for the rear.
    Managed to get that all done fairly quick, and actually rode the last 2 or 3 sessions of the day before packing to go home.

    After the fact I bought a new passenger peg for the rear (for pillon duty), and kept using that front setup for another 6 or 7 years, until some guy didn't like my brake lever setup trying to get inspected one year.

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  12. #12
    TWINS! xrocket21's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Quote Originally Posted by MHenry600 View Post
    June 2010, summer after graduating college. I was still trying to find a job, and since I had nothing going on I packed a bag and tent on the back of the CBR and rode up to NHMS from Springfield, MA area. Plan was to corner work for two days at a TTD.
    On day 1, someone crashed and shattered their ankle if I remember right. Since the second day was already paid, they asked around and offered it up to me.

    Second session of the morning I came into T1, made the flip for T1a and got a bit too far inside. Got on the white painted line and it was slick as hell (wasn't very warm that morning).
    Tucked the front and slid off into the grass (before it was paved over). Didn't do too much damage, except it did rip off the right foot peg.
    At this point I was more thinking about the fact I had to ride 2.5 hours back to MA that afternoon.

    Someone mentioned to see if one of the passenger pegs would fit. Not quite the same shape/size, but same pin diameter.
    Then looked for someone with a dremel.
    Cut down the back end of the peg until we could get the pin through, and that when pushing down on the peg it would mate against the bracket properly to support a load.
    Bent the brake "lever" that was left so that there was at least a little tab to push on for the rear.
    Managed to get that all done fairly quick, and actually rode the last 2 or 3 sessions of the day before packing to go home.

    After the fact I bought a new passenger peg for the rear (for pillon duty), and kept using that front setup for another 6 or 7 years, until some guy didn't like my brake lever setup trying to get inspected one year.
    Nice!

    I had a VERY similar experience!

    I also had a long ride home to Southern MA, but I went down in turn 2 on a white line in the wet. I also used my passenger peg to temp fix my broken peg, and was able to buy a lever at the track to make it the long ride home!

    My one and only track day.

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  13. #13
    Super Adventurer SRTie4k's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    First time my buddy and I went down to NC to ride, I brought my streetfightered TL1000S. It was freshly maintained the winter before and was running fine.

    about 100 yards from the overlook at Deals Gap, the bike shuts off mid corner. I restart it, but it shuts off again. I'm able to limp it to the overlook. We then spend 2 hours fucking with the bike only to discover that the ignition plug had melted (it's a pretty well known issue on the TLS). Luckily we brought tools, I think we eventually used a multi-tool to bend the pins to make better contact with the ignition relay, and shoved a nickel in the hole the loose wire was running into to hold it in place and prevent it from loosing contact.

    The biggest "oh shit" moment we had was after reassembling everything, the bike still wouldn't start. It would crank but wouldn't run. We were just about to give up and ask for someone to call a tow truck, when I happened to glance over to see the kill switch was on. Flipping that off the bike fired up and ran fine! Had no more problems the rest of that trip, thankfully.


    Another kinda funny story, when my buddy had his Tiger 800, I gave him the stock steering damper from my KTM. He never got around to fabbing up a bracket to attach it to the frame, so instead he used 27 zip ties. I remember one ride I went on he happened to glance at it and noticed one zip tie had broken, so he added another one. He was quite pro-active about making sure there was always 27 zip ties on that steering damper (and he never made that bracket).

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    Last edited by SRTie4k; 01-17-22 at 01:39 PM.
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  14. #14
    TWINS! xrocket21's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Quote Originally Posted by SRTie4k View Post
    First time my buddy and I went down to NC to ride, I brought my streetfightered TL1000S. It was freshly maintained the winter before and was running fine.

    about 100 yards from the overlook at Deals Gap, the bike shuts off mid corner. I restart it, but it shuts off again. I'm able to limp it to the overlook. We then spend 2 hours fucking with the bike only to discover that the ignition plug had melted (it's a pretty well known issue on the TLS). Luckily we brought tools, I think we eventually used a multi-tool to bend the pins to make better contact with the ignition relay, and shoved a nickel in the hole the loose wire was running into to hold it in place and prevent it from loosing contact.

    The biggest "oh shit" moment we had was after reassembling everything, the bike still wouldn't start. It would crank but wouldn't run. We were just about to give up and ask for someone to call a tow truck, when I happened to glance over to see the kill switch was on. Flipping that off the bike fired up and ran fine! Had no more problems the rest of that trip, thankfully.


    Another kinda funny story, when my buddy had his Tiger 800, I gave him the stock steering damper from my KTM. He never got around to fabbing up a bracket to attach it to the frame, so instead he used 27 zip ties. I remember one ride I went on he happened to glance at it and noticed one zip tie had broken, so he added another one. He was quite pro-active about making sure there was always 27 zip ties on that steering damper (and he never made that bracket).
    The Widowmaker!!!!

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  15. #15
    Lifer backinthesaddle's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    1978 or 1978 had a Yamaha DT100 dual purpose. Two stroke with autolube. The throttle cable was kind of Y shaped in that by the carb it split and about a foot or so went to the oil injection pump. That part snapped off and no autolube function. Could have fixed by running premix but I grabbed some thick enough electrical wire. Tied it and crimped to the Cable and same idea down at the pump. Worked until new cable came in.

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  16. #16
    Angry Gumball RandyO's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    back in 60's when I was a teenager, the popular thing was to strip a VW bug down into a bush buggy, no roll cage, just the floor pan, engine steering wheel and 2 front seats a 3rd or 4th person, would be kneeling on floor behind the seats, but not often, one of those times, I was with my younger and older brother, 3 of us raisin hell out on a logging road, when not surprisingly, the floor pan snapped in half. we had balling twine and a pitchfork and an axe. we cut down a sapling, and with the baling twine, we splinted it together, put the shift linkage into 1st gear, my older brother steered, I wedged a tine of the pitchfork into the clutch arm on the bell housing, and operated the clutch while my younger brother reached over the engine to manually operate the carb. Eventually we made it back home, and the remains became our first shortened bushbuggy, we built a rudimentary roll cage, had several sets of tires from racing slicks (a blast in a wet parking lot) to a tractor tire setup for mud

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    RandyO
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  17. #17

    Re: MacGyver fix

    I don't think anyone can top that! Best I did was drive it home with one head light...

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  18. #18
    Angry Gumball RandyO's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Quote Originally Posted by MUZ720 View Post
    I don't think anyone can top that! Best I did was drive it home with one head light...
    I've seen a lot of shit, I spent a year or so of my life working in a garage, mostly towing and scrapping cars, I can't remember how many times I have found a nice pair of vice grip, clamping off a brake line, or a 2x4 shoved into a worn out coil spring, $$ under the back seat

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    RandyO
    IBA#9560
    A man with a gun is a citizen
    A man without a gun is a subject LETS GO BRANDON

  19. #19
    Super-Dooper User ɹǝʍoןandɹǝʍoן's Avatar
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    Re: MacGyver fix

    Back a few months ago my friend and I were riding dirt bikes and we were out in the woods where there was not much except for water, deep water, both ways so we didn’t know whether to continue or turn back. Well we proceeded and he had tipped over at one point on his dr650 and jammed mud all into the kill switch which made the kill switch malfunction and essentially keep the bike killed. Without tools, we had to strip the wires going to the kill switch so we used a stone to get the job done and then tie the wires together to enable it to start. Worked to get us home!


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