Lemons

[Graham]

My wife tell's me she married a LEMON.....

Yeah a WILD LEMON, bring on next season,        Thems fighten words.

[Doc]

Out of all the dungers and half decent (cars and bikes) I've owned I can't think of any that were lemons. This included an '80 Sigma auto which was ultra reliable. Even after drowning in flood waters twice it never missed a beat nor used any oil between changes. Just lucky guess    

[TeeBone]

the engine was a 149 grey engine.

I thought the venerable old GREY motor only came in two sizes - 132.5 & 138?

[firko]

one the best cars I owned was a EH Holden with low milage and the rear seat had never had a person sitting on it, it was layed down from new until the day l bought it off the fellow. the engine was a 149 grey engine

Dave, the 149 was a red motor...unless someone painted yours grey, or the car was actually an EJ.
My lemon cars are many and varied, the most memorable being a bright yellow 1954 Vanguard Spacemaster Deluxe that I bought for $5 ( yes five dollars)while my FJ was undergoing a back to the metal paint job. There wasn't a moving part on that car that wasn't retarded in some way. The lights would come on and off whenever they felt like it, day or night and the speedo read 60mph barely off idle and then the needle would go to 90mph and stay there, no matter how fast you were actually going (or stopped) until you tapped it with something hard. For some reason the previous owner had removed the starter motor altogether so I had to start it with the crank handle which wasn't the problem you'd asume as the big long stroke 4 cylinder had no compression to speak of. Even the valve radio had a mind of it's own, picking up only the horse racing station 2KY and some bizarre community station that seemed OK during the day but after midnight it became the outlet for every right wing facist and born again christian movement in Sydney. Despite the old Spacemasters many quirks, we has an absolute hoot in her for the 6 months I owned her. When I got my FJ holden back I sold it to a mate who let the team down by fitting a starter motor and fixing the light switch. It was never as much fun under his ownership.

[Simo63]

My wife tell's me she married a LEMON.....

Remind her that she's one too, now....... 

  Why ... because she's been sucking a lemon she's become one?

[Andrew L]

Yamaha fans aint gunna like this but I had a love hate, more hated relationship with my 1983 IT250K I reckon I spent more time pushing it than riding it, some days it burnt out pulser coils others the source coils and  at a feirce rate reckon i had at least 5 rides in a row where it let me get a fair way from the car and then died, but im still a yamaha bloke, own 2 at present road bike one been very good to me over the years of ownership 75000km not a spanner laid on it except the sump plug, havent had the earlier rt360 long enough to form an opinion yet but seems ok.

[Hardex]

Lemons...all of them.
* Bultaco Lobito..... Every time I mention what a piece of shit this bike was I get inundated with hate emails by the 'el Clubo Bultaco' faithful so out of fear of physical reprisal I won't bother repeating my tales of woe with the little yellow monster. Search out my ADB piece on it.

*1970 Yamaha RT1-MX.....As much as I love these black beauties today, my yellow striped RT1MX kept me perpetually broke back in 1970. I bought the bike from touring car legend Ian 'Pete' Geohegan after it had tried to kill him on a trail ride with Kevin Bartlett (501 Maico). He'd purchased the RT1 in the USA and stripped it and imported it into Australia in the boot of what was to become his Mustang race car.
After graduating from the Bultaco I became drunk with horsepower, becoming Maroubra's own Seth Enslow predecesor, roosting and jumping over the Kurnell sandhills like Malcolm, Steve and Mert in On Any Sunday and pretending to be a speedway superstar on the Boat Harbour tidal beach flats. Unfortunately RT1's, sand and BP Zoom 2 stroke fuel weren't a great combo and before long the bike suffered the first of a number of nip ups, the worst happening 2/3 of the way up an almost vertical (in my mind anyway) dune. Somehow, on the ensuing tumble to the bottom my foot got caught between the back wheel and the swingarm and the bike flung me around like I was a rag doll stuck in the spokes. I was so far into the dunes with my ankle still stuck in the swingarm, nobody could find me for an hour or so until a young couple who were obviously in the dunes for some open air nookie found me. Another three hours passed before the police rescue squad finally got to me in their Land rover. After removing the rear wheel to get my broken ankle out they took me to hospital with some severe naughty boy..motorcycles are dangerous lectures along the way. Apparently my mates had a shit of a time getting the bike out too.....but I digress.

For some reason the big Yammy loved eating ignition side crank bearings to the point that it ate two right side crank cases (you could buy them over the counter), it devoured swingarm bushes and steering head bearings and shock absorbers lasted a couple of months tops. In the end I gave up, took out a loan and bought the 350 square barrel Maico that I still own today. Looking back, everything that went wrong with the bike was down to big revs, an inadequate paper air filter and sand, a bad combo. If I'd have treated the bike like I treated the beloved Maico (only one trip to Kurnell ever) I'd have much better memories of that bike. As with Geoffs KLX 250 the RT1-MX taught me some good lessons about maintenance, sand proofing and most of all, how to build an engine. 

* 1972 Maico MC250...... I owned a 1972 Maico 250 radial that was, for some reason we never ever discovered, incredibly slow even by slow Maico 250 standards. I tried everything...Mikuni carb, Gary Treadwell ports, methanol...no matter what I did it was still the slowest 250 Maico in our club by a long shot. Even importer Blair Harley agreed that it was a slow poke after he and Per Klitland did some laps of Nepean on it. I sold it to a fellow club member who raced it once and quickly got rid of it for the same reason I did.

I once owned a Holden Camira wagon, nice looking car, but it was a true lemon, everything went wrong with that car a cost me a lot of money, it had to go., Torana sunbird where another

Jeez Dave.....you picked two of the worst cars ever made.....now let me guess, you also owned a Sigma as well. Am I right?
 

what a great story well done Firko.To me the moral of the story is that if you need a part that you think will take two weeks to arrive from Japan and they have it in stock ,then its a sly admission the japs have made a mistake and they are trying to get out of a recall on there bike.Sounds cynical but true.
I had a xr350 RF that i replaced the fourth and Second gears in it four times over a ten year periode and every time the case hardning had perished on the gears and of course they had them in stock every time i needed them.I ran a magnetic sump plug to see the tell tail signs to know when to pull it down.I was also amused to find that XR250 Re to RF had a major problem with the rubber intake manifold.Because the bike ran so hot ,the rubber on the manifold would go hard and lift from the alloy base causeing air to leak into the intake causing the bike to run lean and even more hotter than before, then this would cause the head to crack between the exhaust valve and spark plug .You could buy these manifolds of the shelf but here's the thing, you could also buy a manifold with a bakerlite insert if you knew about it of the shelf as well and if you didn't know this. you would go around in circles with the same problem for years.
If this problem was in a German made car ,they world have been recalled in a heart beat.
 

[bazza]

did stewart have a thought on "lemons"

[albrid-3]

The Holden was a EJ model not a EH. my mistake, anyway it was a good old bomb.

[Doc]

there were 138 red motors too (as used in LC-LJ Torana)

[firko]

then this would cause the head to crack between the exhaust valve and spark plug

My mate ace TIG welder Chris Ellis had an almost full time job welding up the cracks in XR Honda heads back in the day. He also did 99% of the 'big fin' conversions for GB's XR's Only which eased the overheating problem a little but not totally.

[Tim754]

Tm400 only good thing about it always shitting itself in some unbelievable way, was I stopped me riding the  beastly demonic possessed killer.... ( How on earth could it have been so BAD when all the TM125 we have had were pure fun reliable treasures??

Honda early XL175, totally gutless ,bits kept falling off (like the swing arm whilst going down hill on made road! Yes the nut and locking pin were still in the broken shaft!) electrics must have been Prince of Darkness (Lucas) leftover offal. Rubber front forks that at best nearly held the front wheel straight, shit brittle camshaft and rockers that ran in melted butter bearings, and many standard XL175 kick-starter shafts that snapped as soon as you lifted your leg to try and coax the little pus bucket into it's feeble facsimile of life. 
 
 Have briefly (very!!!)  owned  both a Morris 1100 and     a    Lada   at times.....

[Mick D]

Honda early XL175, totally gutless ,bits kept falling off (like the swing arm whilst going down hill made road and yes the nut and locking pin were still in the broken shaft!) electrics must have been Prince of Darkness (Lucas) leftover offal. Rubber front forks that at best nearly held the front wheel straight, shit brittle camshaft and rockers that ran in melted butter bearings, and many standard XL175 kick-starter shafts that snapped as soon as you lifted your leg to try and coax the little puss bucket into it's feeble facsimile of life. 
 

Yeap That about sums it up How could something that looked so good, be so completely f**ked

[topari]

Remember those Gemini 50's in the 70s ? Mate had one. Fast little two stroke. I had a honda DAX. The Gemini broken down almost every ride. Snapped frames and broke gears were common. Great when it was going. Very fast.

[Big John]

I had a 84 KTM 250 gs it was aa awsome bike to ride when going, but trying to keep it going was near impossible I cannot remember ever putting chain or sprockets on it but i can remember putting 2 clutch covers on it as they coroded out so quick 2 ignitions and the rear WP shock rebuils twice, once with a new shaft and a clutch.
Its been 25 years since that bike and I know there reliability are a bit better now but a KTM will never grace my shed, new or old, oh well maybe a 495.