lordlister
You can observe a lot by just watching
- Joined
- May 28, 2006
- Messages
- 994
During my summers in high school, I worked as an apprentice at a motorcycle shop. My first summer, I spent most of my time learning the in's and out's, but I spent most of my time dabbling in the art of moped tune up's. As the summers progressed, I had the opportunity to get involved in more and more interesting repairs. By my third summer, I was give my fist major solo job: replacing the cam chain and transmission work on a Kawasaki GPZ 550. My supervisor (named Kevin) put me up to the task. I admire the guy greatly still to this day. He was a 40 some odd year old cigar chompin bike wiz that could fix anything. He challenged that the job could be completed in a day, and offered to assist if I found myself stuck in a quagmire. After 3 days, I was nearing completion, however I couldn't get the cam chain tensioner seated even closely (after fidgiting for over 5 hours). With my tail between my legs, I tugged on Kevin's coat tails and admitted I was at a loss. After a few minutes of fidigiting, he found the mechanism was previously butchered to prolong the necessity for repair. When he figured this out, he put the mechanism back together properly and popped it in. All that was left was to check the timing and see if she fire up. Well, she turned over alright, but refused to start. I had fuel, air, and a spark. She turned over again and again, but refused to start. By day 4, I couldn't figure this out, so I decided to throw in the towel and seek some help.
Kevin: "The fuel good?"
Me: "Yeah, changed it twice"
Kevin: "You got a spark? O2?"
Me: "yeah...I checked everything"
Kevin struts on over to the bike, cigar in mouth, shaking his head. He looks in the fuel tank, swishes it around a bit. Taps the starter for a good minute...no go. He removed a spark plug, turns er over....spark's good. He continues to fumble around for 5 minutes, repeatedly thumbing the ignition without luck. Finally, he removed the air cleaners from the carberators, tries to look through the air intake manifold of the carbs while thumbing the ignition and.......BOOOM!!!!!!
His face was charcoal black, parts of his his goatee was on fire, and his cigar was magled to bits as if it were blown up in a cartoon.
Kevin (in a cool laid back voice): "I think you put the cams in backwards...mate"
So I did.
(with the cams in backwards, the fuel air mix was blown out the back of the carbs into the air filter,and with that removed, Kevin's face)
Kevin: "The fuel good?"
Me: "Yeah, changed it twice"
Kevin: "You got a spark? O2?"
Me: "yeah...I checked everything"
Kevin struts on over to the bike, cigar in mouth, shaking his head. He looks in the fuel tank, swishes it around a bit. Taps the starter for a good minute...no go. He removed a spark plug, turns er over....spark's good. He continues to fumble around for 5 minutes, repeatedly thumbing the ignition without luck. Finally, he removed the air cleaners from the carberators, tries to look through the air intake manifold of the carbs while thumbing the ignition and.......BOOOM!!!!!!
His face was charcoal black, parts of his his goatee was on fire, and his cigar was magled to bits as if it were blown up in a cartoon.
Kevin (in a cool laid back voice): "I think you put the cams in backwards...mate"
So I did.
(with the cams in backwards, the fuel air mix was blown out the back of the carbs into the air filter,and with that removed, Kevin's face)