Show Your Mutilated Parts!

[Robert Luland]

Just like the title says. Show your mutilated parts. Back when I was knee high to a beagle (Ten years old in 71) I was working part time cleaning up and polishing bikes at a Yamaha/Triumph shop in Mount Holly, New Jersey owned by a guy named Benny Trimble. Benny was into ISDT racing and Triumph powered midget racers. The guy just fascinated the **** out of me. I mean he was my mentor. I don’t know if Ben is still with us and if not I hope were ever he is he found peace in his existence. We were talking about Harley-Davidson one day and he said Harleys not a bad bike. It’s the owners that are assholes. Well it took me the next forty years to grasp what he was trying to tell me. Over the last year I’ve dedicated myself to rebuild stuff as units tag it and shelve it. (Clean this joint up!) In doing this I can’t believe some of the stuff I have come across. During the 60 though the seventies Harley could have made a killing just selling Vise-Grips, Channel-Locks, hammers and chisels. It seems like ever other thing I pick up here has chisel marks on it. The worst offender is the motor nut or the compensator. I mean I even found a tranny hub nut with chisel marks. The owners were there own worst enemies. You guys have to have some real winners lying around. So show’em. In my business I have a box full of stuff that I hang on to like the cartridge fuses that someone soldered wires across because he didn’t have a spare and turn them around so no one would see. That lit my ass up! This is going to be fun! Lets see what mankind has really done to Harleys in the past. Bob L

[Rooster]

I guess I missed your so-called "mangled" clutch hub nut. I don't see anything wrong with the one in the photo.
Here's one of mine. It may look rough, but it's still in service and doing the job it was intended to do.

[Robert Luland]

The leak proof intake manafold! The more I look . the more I find.

[Britluv]

Mutilated parts

It always amazes me how guys decide to work on their bikes on Saturday AM for Sunday's ride, using hammer, crescent wrench and vice-grips, never can
afford (or won't buy) a shop manual, but always have the money for a
twelve-pack of brew to guzzle while they rip their bikes apart.
"What's the cheapest thing on a Harley?" "The owner."

[exeric]

It always amazes me how guys decide to work on their bikes on Saturday AM for Sunday's ride, using hammer, crescent wrench and vice-grips, never can
afford (or won't buy) a shop manual, but always have the money for a
twelve-pack of brew to guzzle while they rip their bikes apart.
"What's the cheapest thing on a Harley?" "The owner."

Now that is funny.

[Rooster]

It always amazes me how guys decide to work on their bikes on Saturday AM for Sunday's ride, using hammer, crescent wrench and vice-grips, never can
afford (or won't buy) a shop manual, but always have the money for a
twelve-pack of brew to guzzle while they rip their bikes apart.
"What's the cheapest thing on a Harley?" "The owner."

There are four distinct types of motorcycles owners; collectors who ride, riders who collect, riders, and collectors. Sometimes it's very easy to see who falls where....

[D.Mac]

[QUOTE=Britluv;86543] "What's the cheapest thing on a Harley?" "The owner."

As a person of Scottish decent, I resemble that remark!
I used to know a guy that liked to say "always watch-out for the guy that wants to borrow a hammer and a screwdriver..."
Doug.

[William McClean]

" Hoot mon ! "

[bmh]

All right, I opened the safe and got these gems out of the museum of unnatural mechanical history. All of this stuff came off of running machinery.


This is what was left of an aluminum upper valve collar out of my Shovel head from some years ago. Missed a hard shift at a crucial moment, damn wore out ol 4 speed box. Rode it home like that, never sucked the valve, actually ran surprisingly well considering.



The incredibly worn and broken throttle shaft came from a bike with " a little low speed hesitation" the owner claimed. The other object is a crankcase stud that wound up glued inside the case halves with Yamabond. Thought we were gonna shatter the cases before we would get it out.



And this is one of my personal favorites, A guy brought me an FL that had developed a bit of a wobble. He was a nice enough sort, shame he let Jack Daniels run his bike mercilessly through every burnout pit (all 4 gears , of course!) he could find as well as any other place he could put a wheel against and fry one off. The fork was twisted real good, the steering stem was stretched so tight from the lower tree being tweaked that I was afraid I was going to bust my cone nut socket after attempting to use it with breaker bar and jack handle to no avail. Next was a pipe wrench also with jack handle, still no go! Had to heat it up with propane and started to chisel it off. When I shaved about a quarter inch off the one side and it still didn't move I thought we would need to split it. It finally gave up its death grip. A clear cut case of a loose throttle nut if there ever was. Ain't motorcycles fun?

[Eric MATHIEU]

Some time back I made a gallery with some of my favorites!
Eric

http://www.beautyofspeed.com/gallery...used/index.htm