What’s worst example of bodgery you have found on your bike?

[ThreadKiller]

Was tidying up a bit of wiring on my DT. Unwrapped some PVC tape to reveal what seemed to be a tiny blue bullet like connector. Couldn’t see it properly as joint was covered by semi-transparent sleeve and it didn’t look like anything I have seen before. Looked further and it came apart in my hands. Turned out to be blu-tak!

I’m sure there are lots of worst cases of bodgery out there…?!

[Simon_GH]

The bleed screw in my rear calliper had stripped the thread and was loosely “screwed” in place. A thumbnail provided all the torque needed to remove. Dealer initially pushed back to say a bike wouldn’t leave their workshop with that fault. After asking why he thought I’d feel the need to attack a bleed screw on a working bike, a van was dispatched to collect my bike.

[robbocop33]

I've discovered a few in my time,top two that come to mind are a 1967 jaguar 420 i bought,it needed a little welding at the front jacking point,while cleaning it up with my angle grinder wire brush a little bit of bright blue dropped down,i was like wtf is that??
I pulled it and it stretched! Pulled it a bit harder and out it came,a rubber glove!!After a bit more poking a 'loose' bit of metal plate fell down,then a piece of cardboard,and then chunks of broken body filler????
The next one i came across a few times when restoring old motocross bikes,why install new swingarm bearings when you can just wrap electrical tap around and around the swingarm pivot bolt to take up the space the bearing filled!,right??Always made me chuckle that one.

[KTMsm]

Not my bike but on a Chinese Quad that I was thinking about buying my kids

The frame had been poorly made and was a bit short - so they had welded in a bolt to bridge the gap - it was BRAND NEW !

Needless to say I didn't buy it

[Krikkit]

KTMsm said:

Not my bike but on a Chinese Quad that I was thinking about buying my kids

The frame had been poorly made and was a bit short - so they had welded in a bolt to bridge the gap - it was BRAND NEW !

Needless to say I didn't buy it

Bodges included from factory, that's a new one

[Mogsmex]

not a discovery as I was well aware

when I was 16 my fizzy didnt have enough guts in the generator to power front and rear light so being a skint YTS trainee I wired up a switch under the tank so I could alternate ...........

used to leave it on front most of the time and switch the back on if there was plod behind me anywhere

oh to be young (and that stupid) again !

[Gareth9702]

Not exactly a bodge but the cams in a Kawasaki GT550 put in the wrong way round. That is, timing marks on the cam on the left hand side, timing marks on the engine on the right hand side. It ran, but I have absolutely no idea how they set the valve timing.

[Red9zero]

Years ago my brother in law had an XJ650 that he had pretty much ran into the ground and had a nasty bottom end rattle. Rather than fix it, he drained the oil and put some much thicker stuff in. That still didn't fix the rattle, so he drained a bit off and poured a load of sawdust in there. Result, one much quieter XJ ready to punt onto some poor unsuspecting mug. However, before he could advertise it for sale, my Mother mentioned to her boss (a family friend who she had known for years and was quite well off) that her son in law was selling a bike. She was unaware of the bodge and despite the rest of us desperately trying to put him off, he ended up buying it. He actually ran it for a few years, doing a few oil changes himself along the way, and no mention was ever made of the death rattle. I assume the sawdust miraculously cured the fault, or more likely, he got the engine rebuilt and didn't mention it. I still feel guilty about it and it wasn't actually me that did it !

[bimsb6]

70’s and 80’s honda engines had many bodges on the camchain tensioners to quieten them down and have seen the tensioner locking bolts sheared off and araldited in place .

[Gareth9702]

This may only be a myth ... but back in 1978 the story circulated that someone had part exchanged a Kawasaki 1000 for a new bike. Between buying and collecting the new bike, the engine failed on the old. Solution? Take it in a van to the slipway near the dealer, then freewheel down the slipway to deliver the bike to the rear entrance of the dealership. Job done.

[S2r]

The gear lever on the Mito wasn't the proper bolt with a collar, nope, some random bolt with lots of duct tape wrapped around and jammed in.

Many years ago as a skint teenager I may have ran my KH250 for many months knowing full well that I had holed the middle piston and being unable to afford to rebuild it again (glowing sparks coming out of the exhaust were a bit of a giveaway) It was either run it and keep my job, or lose my job as I couldn't get to work

[jimPH]

Going through pistons every month was a regular occurrence on my old DT50. Obviously poorly fitted and no idea what I was doing, I was "between" pistons one weekend, so to get out, my mate thought it would be a good idea to ask our mate who owned an RD, if we could "borrow his piston".

Knock knock: Hi nige, can I borrow your piston till next week.

Nige: ????

[Drawweight]

On a GSXR 750 one of the pinch bolts at the bottom of the front forks had obviously sheared off.

Instead of trying to get the bolt out or drilling and tapping it the head of the bolt was simply glued back into place.

[Tango13]

When I was rebuilding the 1050 engine I wanted to run it on 955 nikasil liners instead of steel for various reasons. When the engine builder fitted them in the water jacket we discovered that a 955 nikasil liner is 3.22mm shorter than a 1050 steel liner.

I had three choices, re-use the steel liners, make some longer nikasil liners from scratch or make a spacer.

I delegated the job to Dave the Miller...



Each liner sat proud of the water jacket by .025mm...

[Onelastattempt]

Drawweight said:

On a GSXR 750 one of the pinch bolts at the bottom of the front forks had obviously sheared off.

Instead of trying to get the bolt out or drilling and tapping it the head of the bolt was simply glued back into place.

I had the same on my GSX750F, but also the bottom clamp had been broken in half and also glued back together.

[Pebbles167]

Onelastattempt said:

Drawweight said:

On a GSXR 750 one of the pinch bolts at the bottom of the front forks had obviously sheared off.

Instead of trying to get the bolt out or drilling and tapping it the head of the bolt was simply glued back into place.

I had the same on my GSX750F, but also the bottom clamp had been broken in half and also glued back together.

That's just scary! Incredible lack of any sort of sense.

[Onelastattempt]

Pebbles167 said:

Onelastattempt said:

Drawweight said:

On a GSXR 750 one of the pinch bolts at the bottom of the front forks had obviously sheared off.

Instead of trying to get the bolt out or drilling and tapping it the head of the bolt was simply glued back into place.

I had the same on my GSX750F, but also the bottom clamp had been broken in half and also glued back together.

That's just scary! Incredible lack of any sort of sense.

I went through every nut and bolt on the bike after finding that bodge, luckily I did not find anything else.
It turned out easy to repair properly, a second hand bottom clamp and the broken bolt came out quite easily with a pair of molegrips.

[Pebbles167]

My mates last 125 was quite the bodgework. Few good upgrades though. Battery relocation kit, high flow air filters, custom exhaust, etc.

He rode it for months in this state. And I know for fact that at one point it spent a weekend underwater in the river Avon as part of some stag do shenanigans.

[dudleybloke]

An epoxy resin of some description holding a sparkplug in place as the threads were buggered.

[moto_traxport]

Pebbles167 said:

Onelastattempt said:

Drawweight said:

On a GSXR 750 one of the pinch bolts at the bottom of the front forks had obviously sheared off.

Instead of trying to get the bolt out or drilling and tapping it the head of the bolt was simply glued back into place.

I had the same on my GSX750F, but also the bottom clamp had been broken in half and also glued back together.

That's just scary! Incredible lack of any sort of sense.

Standard Suzuki council estate prep surely?!

My favourite story of cretinous bodgery just for sheer Frank Spencer idiocy was a race prepped ZX10 brought into a friend who’s still the dyno chap at a reasonably well known tuning place (where I also used to work moons ago).

Turns out this ZX10 had an odd running fault eventually traced to the hasty ‘track prep’ of relocating all the electronic “stuff” in the race subframe / seat unit.

Said owner / lunatic had cable tied the tilt cut-out switch onto the exhaust valve pulley (which apparently turns 90 degrees at certain revs) and therefore ...........