Problematic Diagnoses

[nowhere.elysium]

Today, I found myself a victim of thinking too much.

My SV, which has been off the road for two weeks now, has finally had the attention that it required.

Allow me to set the scene; I've determined that the problem lies with the gear shift return spring, which is a clutch-out job. On the SV, this means that I've got to drain the coolant, as well as the oil, so it's not a totally trivial job.

Imagine, if you will, an irate nowhere.elysium, with a patient Mrs nowhere.elysium, down in the garage, prodding at the sordid underbelly of a filthy SV, swearing profusely at the weather for not being sure as to whether it wanted to piss it down, or stay sunny.

I get to the stage of having pulled the clutch basket out, knackering the circlip that holds the gear shift shaft (fnar) in place, and pulling the whole arrangement out. Distressingly, the part that I'd waited a few days to have delivered was sat there, in the bike, looking happy as Larry.

The sodding spring was fine.

Obligatory 'Fffuuuu!!' aside, I went through everything that I could, operating under the assumption that I'd had to dismantle this much bike, so it's got to be something internal. Of course, it wasn't. It turns out that the bushing in the rearset was so clagged up with filth, that it wouldn't move freely enough to reset back to the central position.

What took me much of this afternoon, could've been solved in about fifteen minutes. To add insult to injury, I've got the sinking feeling that I didn't manage to get all the air out of the coolant system properly, so I'm going to have to do the ritual tapping of the hoses, and topping up of the radiator in the morning.

So, BCF - I ask you. What great and terrible misdiagnoses have you made in the past? I'm willing to expand this out to mechanical screwups, too, provided it keeps the anecdotes flowing.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[Nb]

On my bikes things never seem to go wrong, but working in a garage ive seen all manner of misdiagnosed/screwups.
The most recent WTF moment was on a 2002 fiat punto that had just been serviced where i work and just cut out in the washbay. The mechanic was looking confused and decided it was just a one off.....
until 2 hours later we had to tow it in at 5:30 on a friday afternoon off one of the largest roundabouts in milton keynes in a clapped out hyundai accent.

I got back to the garage and had a quick look around and noticed that the fuel pump wasnt running when you turned the ignition on.
So we all went it'll need a fuel pump and went home, next day it started first time and ran for 5 mins then cut out. So out comes the power probe/multimeter and its not the fuel pump thats at fault its the power to the fuel pump...next thing to check was the ecu relay pin that suplies power the fuel pump. After some more time testing the wires between the ecu and the relay im sure the wires are fine and that its the ecu at fault (fairly common in FIATS).
Anyway, my boss decides to send it to the 'specialist' for diagnosis, who after looking at it for 2 days decides it needs an ecu.

Hundreds of pounds later the ecu has arrived and the 'specialist' rings us to say its still the same
Car is brought back to us still cutting out randomly, after digging around on various automotive techincal websites another part is fitted called the body control module 200 pounds ish?
And still the fucking car cuts out and wont start at times...
The car has been off the road for almost 4 weeks now and my boss was almost having a heartattack with worry over this damn car.
After some more scratching of heads we noticed something that was odd with the car....No1 ht lead was obviously not the same as the rest and was clearly off of another car, but the car did not missife or hesitate in anyway.

So i orded 13 pounds worth of ht leads set and the car was fine after that never to cut out again...............
What had happened was the mechanic who serviced it pulled the ht lead off and it had broken so he grabbed a second hand 'spare' and put that on instead.
The ht lead was interfering with the low side can bus causing the ecu to go down and no serial communication with our diagnostics equpment.
My boss lost out bigtime on that car.....
Sometimes i fucking hate cars.
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Cbr1100xx blackbird gone, mk4 golf gt tdi chav now
Colin1 wrote 'Im grateful for what i can get, which isnt all that much.'
Columbus travel insurance are crap!! Do not use!

[Benson_JV]

Not a misdiagnostic but when I first bought the CBR, it was running a tad rough so I set about replacing the sparkies.
Now, I looked through the side panels and decided that the space provided couldn't possibly be where I would remove them from (Didn't have the Haynes manual at that point in time...)
So I stripped down the tank, air box and was set to face the carbs all to replace these bloody spark plugs when I thought, enough is enough. I tried to remove them from the side panels, funnily enough...it worked.
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Willson - "If you go out on that CBR600 in the winter, you're going to do more miles on your side than on your wheels."
Riding: CBR600FW Driving: Audi A6
Previous Bikes: '96 Bandit 600, '96 GPz305

[Ariel Badger]

In my youth I spent hours taking both barrels off a flat twin outside of a pub on the IOM and eventually discovered a loose nut that would have taken me a few moments to fix if my approach had been more logical.
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Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Shaft]

Kinda reverse situation for me.

Walked past a Stag that had just come in, being driven by our bodyshop guy (who isn't a mechanic, but should know better) and commented that it sounded a bit ticky, like the timing chains were loose.

He said it was just missing and needed clearing out, so gave it a bootfull and got a very expensive sounding bang for his efforts.

One of the chains snapped and it blew itself to buggery, ably assisted by the fact it was revving it's tits off at the time.

+1 to me
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Things get better with age; I'm close to being magnificent........
20 RE Interceptor, 83 Z1100A3, 83 GS650 Katana
WooHoo, I'm a Man Point Millionaire! https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=234035

[Pol Anorl]

recently took carbs apart on the xj to check the diaphragms and after putting back together the bike ran like a pile of shit, i didnt start it till the next day and i got about 2 miles then it started to die out and wouldnt start

Got it back home seat off, tank off, airbox off and carbs off check carbs back on try again same problem but didn't get as far this time.

Back home strip bike get to carbs scratch head like fuck then decide to see if i even have enough fuel in my tank so i take pipe off fuel tap and turn it on but oh look no fuel coming through looked inside tank theres plenty.

After all that it was a blocked fuel tap.
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GOOD GAME BODYGUARD: https://i.imgur.com/8WePGgf.jpg
20:30:37 Pyro.: I don't sort of like men, I take every advantage to choke on dick.
Jewlio Iglesias: You live in Liverpool - Chances are, the front door has already been kicked off the hinges

[snikks]

Bike started cutting out and struggling to run on the way to girlfriends house one morning, just after it'd been washed. First thought - water must've got in somewhere it shouldn't.

Cue checking around sidestand switch, tightening and WD-40'ing battery terminals, checking HT leads, unkinking the breather hoses which had got kinked under the tank... All to no joy.

Finally opened up the seat for another attempt at it, and noticed down the front, a small piece of grease-proof paper, positioned in such a way that it was partially blocking the air-intake.. Removed that and bike has been fine since
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- CBT: 02/01/11 Theory: 26/04/11 Mod 1: 19/05/11 Mod 2: 19/08/11
- 2007 Honda XL125V Varadero (Sold), 1999 Yamaha FZS600 Fazer (Sold), 2001 CBR600F