Weird Stuff

[TT]

A thread on another forum got me thinking of the weird stuff that sometimes happens with dirt bikes. Generally mechanical, but I'm keen to hear of anything that left you scratching your head and reaching for another beer. 

Oh, so you want me to start?  Ok............

Not so much a head scratcher, this one, but years ago we were riding near Mt. Gambier when one guy heard a strange whistle type noise from his air cooled KDX250. He stopped and had his ear to the engine listening, when the spark plug shot out, bounced off the tank, wizzed past his head and off into the scrub taking the coil lead with it. 
Took us 10 minutes to find the bloody thing.............
He'd simply forgotten to tighten the plug and it worked it's way out. 

[pancho]

My first bike was a '52 model 500 a-jay [I bought it for 65 quid out of my deferred pay from the nasho's in 1957] and i decided one day to check the oil level in the horrible burman gearbox, so i unscrewed the plug at the top and lit a match so as to see the level when WHOOMF a flame shot out through the hole about a foot and almost modified my hair style! ..Now how the heck? with a gear box seperate from the engine?. ..The answer,that beaut old slide type fuel tap which always had to leak a drop, managed to drip onto the gasket joint to the outer case of the gearbox and seeped through the gasket and made a nice explosive mixture.... I have a few more for later. cheers wally.   

[Canam370]

Out for a blast on my Katana 1100 a few (hmmm,many...) years ago. I had my visor part way up and travelling at freeway speed when I got a big smack in the mouth. I thought it may have been a rock from a passing car but there weren't any about. I would have tasted a bug so it wasn't that. Continuing on the bike was getting a bit of patter in the front so I stopped to check it out and as I hopped off something dropped out of my lap - turned out to be a wheel weight. Uh huh! The weight matched the shiny spot on the front rim where it used to live! Bloody thing had come off and I'd managed to ride into it where it snuck past my visor and whacked me in the dial. Some days.......

[TT]

When I saw you'd replied, I thought this has got to be a Rokon story.............. but no! 
I know both of the stories about could have ended up nasty, but they gave me a laugh all the same. 
Thanks!

[Canam370]

Sorry Tony, no weirdness with the Rokons (yet!) apart from what they are! See you at the bonanza and perhaps something will happen there - maybe a stuck throttle start! That would catch everyones attention.

[EML]

Popeye says he once had a KH500 with Hanco chambers that had two loud pipes and one that was quiet. So he wound it up to see what was going on when it started to whistle then went off with a BANG. Turned out it had a kettle whistle and some bird wire stuffed up that pipe.

[NSR]

In 85 a mate and I drove to Weipa to ride the Croc run and do the trip to the tip.  After the croc run we were a bit concerned about my mates ITs sprockets but thought they'll be right if he takes it easy.

The first day we rode from Weipa on the west coast of the cape across to the east coast to camp at a place called Captin Billys landing. After about three hours riding we got a bit bored so we started jumping small ant hills and logs it was then my mate forgot about the spockets and tore all the teeth of his front spocket.  We towed him to the camp, of couse no one had a front spocket. 
We were working on getting one sent to Bamaga, as we were standing there someone pointed to the ground and said whats that one fit.  We could not belive it. it fitted the IT in fact it was one tooth bigger so it made the bike better to ride. 

In fact that whole trip was weird in a good sort of way.  The next day at low tide we rode about 3Ks out to sea on a sand bank around the mouth of a river then spent the afternoon jumping the wing of a plane.  My XR ended the trip straped to the bullbar of a Landcuiser like a dead pig  
Cheers
Noel