Boy, do I feel stupid!

[rmc_olderthandirt]

Last week I was getting my bike ready for the District 37 Enduro that was coming up on Sunday (Yesterday). I have been playing with the jetting on the bike, never got it "right" although it is a LOT better than when I first got the bike.

The bike was 10 years old when I got it. How someone could have ridden that bike for 10 years jetted the way it was is beyond me.

Anyway, I wanted to make some additional changes and needed to order some jets. Way too late for this upcoming competition, but I wanted to get the jets on order.

I wasn't positive of what jets I had in the carb at the moment so I took it apart so I could get the numbers off the jets.

First mistake was in assembling the carburetor.
Second mistake was in NOT running the bike after I was done. It was after 10:00 PM and didn't want to be starting a dirt bike so I just put it all back together.

Next day I loaded up the toy hauler and then Friday night drove 7 hours to the desert.

Saturday morning I unload the bike and try to go for a quick warm up ride before heading over to tech inspection. The key word there was "try". Bike starts but it just will not rev up.

OK, something is wrong. Let's see: I had repacked the silencer, changed the oil, washed everything, lubed the chain, replaced the front fender.

I ruled out the oil change, chain lube and front fender as causes. I made sure that there wasn't any water where it didn't belong. I even pulled the silencer to make sure it wasn't blocked. Nope, has to be the carburetor.

I pull the carburetor and take it back apart. Hmmmm..... the idle jet is missing!

Dang, it is probably still lying on the garage floor. 7 hours away.

Thank God I still had the original idle jet in my spares box! The bike didn't idle worth a damn but it at least ran and I could ride the enduro.


It was a nice enduro! I would have had helmet cam video to share except while on the start line I bent down to do something and when I came back up the camera hit the handlebars and folded down, so all I got was a 2 hour, high definition video of my helmet visor.

Rod

 

[IndyMX]

I've had days like that

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

And yet you still was able to ride, perfect! Better luck with the minor details next time! Vintage Bob

 

[sharky243]

LOL I think we've all had days like that at some point in our lives. I remember a couple of my own. I was cleaning the air box on my race bike getting ready for a race, I had stuffed a rag down the air boot to keep dirt out of the carb. Like you, it was getting late and I didn't want to piss off my niebours anymore then I already had, so I finished off the bike and called it a night without fireing the bike. Same scenario, got to the track, went to fire the bike to warm it up before practice, and it ran like a bag of poop. I went through everything to find the problem. As my class was on the track for practice, it occured to me that I had left the rag in the air boot. "DOUGH" !!!! The other time was on my thumper, trying to start the thing with the muffler plug still in. When it finally did fire, it shot the muffler plug out, over to the next pit, and hit my niebour racer in the head. "OOOOPS" ! Good thing he had a sence of humour !

 

[ulmanb]

I went to meet up with some friends to go riding, got there, went to put the helmet on and realized that after I washed the internals I forgot to reinstall them.

Had the dam helmet but unusable as it bobbled around like a bobble doll head.

 

[ellandoh]

a few years ago i was cleaning my carb, put the main jet in the float bowl specifically so i would know where it was when reassemble time came, went to eat dinner, got back to it and just slapped the bowl on..............found it still in the float bowl after first ride through the dunes.

it actually ran without it..........but ran like i was trying to burn water :bang:

 

[Porkchop]

The common denominators here, late at night & tired, being a courteous neighbor, the absence of a check list, interruptions while wrenching. It's happened to me too.
Once while preping for a qualifier, I had the old atk-rotax thumper almost completely disassembled to re-ring & put in a new cam, that part went ok but when reassembling everything I got the high & low speed ignition trigger connections mixed up. Now out of time, we travelled to carson city & got the bikes in the impound 15 minutes before they closed. I knew I had possibly made the error & studied the manual on the way there, but had no time to check it. The following morning every thing went ok, we got to our minute& started on time but my scoot ran like a worn out lawn mower. 2 miles into the course I parked it next to a tree, tore the seat & tank off, swapped the connections around, thru the thing back together & now it ran as expected, YEA! All this & I only lost 1 minute at the first check, early or zeroed all the rest, It was a good day in the B-open 4-stroke class on a bike with a plate. 1993! :ride: :)

 

[jsantapau]

The common denominators here, late at night & tired, being a courteous neighbor, the absence of a check list, interruptions while wrenching. It's happened to me too.
:ride: :)

add in a couple of cold ones and there is big trouble on the way,

the list of stupidity is long but a few memorable ones, forgetting my chain, forgetting to air up my tires, forgetting premix oil,forgetting to bolt down my seat, that one was almost funny.

we all know not to imbibe before or while riding, took me way too long to figure out that the rule should apply when a wrench is in your hand also. :bang:

 

[ulmanb]

The common denominators here, late at night & tired, being a courteous neighbor, the absence of a check list, interruptions while wrenching.

Unfortuneately that is very true for me. A 6 & 7 yr old, plus a soon to be newborn, and I am always rushing or last minute.

Only thing that saves me is a checklist. Whenever I dont use a checklist I forget something.

 

[Kx85Krazy]

My dad and i decided to leave the Cobra Sparky assembling for the night b4 the ride. Man was that a mistake. Apparently it was the right part or it was just labeled wrong because we couldnt make it fit to save our lives. At 2 am we finally hit the sack. I got up at 3 because i was so pissed and started it up. I live in a sub-division but i didnt give a hoot if i got yelled at. Im sure all of us have had experiences like that, dont feel too bad.

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

When you are tearing apart your garage/cleaning up a bit, after 2am the morning of the event, and the tool/part is sitting right out in the open/in your pocket, its about 4 hours past bedtime. When I was racing, working really late usually meant, screw it, I will just leave early and sleep at the track. That changed with the children racing, nope, I was just less stressed sleeping at the track in the morning, because I was not racing. I got my best work done with no distractions early in the morning, and some good music. Hearing the doves start making noise an hour or so before dawn was the only bad part. Fast forward 4 years, the last time I was involved in 40+ races a year, THE BIKE WILL BE READY A DAY IN ADVANCE! Like I believe that, this time? List indeed, need more parts and tools readily available! Nothing better than a rebuild while driving. The occasional all niter is part of the deal, read the fine print. Vintage Bob

 

[beck2222]

I had just bought my CR250 and wanted to give her a little tune up, so i changed the plug, tranny fluid, radiator fluid, gas, air filter, and then took apart the carb and cleaned it out (main jet had some crap in it like i thought, couldn't get it to idle off-choke).

Put everything back together and she fires right up ..... then proceeds to rev through the roof and dies.... kick it again and after a few kicks, it does the same thing (i kill it this time as I didn't want a piston to give me a vasectomy)...

Long story short, i didn't get the rubber boot on completely between the carb and motor, creating a super-lean condition, causing the overrev... Glad I did it though, you learn the most when you screw something up!