New mo'bike, new course
Well, 15 year old Kwak Z400 twin, and a 3 month 'training for work' C&G which, I was informed, was only to get me off the dole figures. Still, didn't have to sign on for 3 months so almost felt like I'd got my life back!

The bike had 'character' meaning it was worn out and needed a lot of attention, but was very satisfying once tweaked up. A mate had sold it to me for buttons, the day before I needed it.

My course started first thing (10am) monday morning, and was about 15 miles away. Thankfully I left early. Sitting at some lights on the A30, I heard a muffled 'splut' and the engine started impersonating a sinking ship. Looking down, I saw one of my spark plugs hanging from its HT lead, lying next to the hole that it was supposed to be firmly screwed into. Oh.

Off I got. Grabbing a plug spanner from my trusty bag of rusty old tools, I tried putting the plug back in. It wouldn't tighten up, the thread on the cylinder head had been stripped. Double Oh!

Undeterred, I cast my mind and eyes about until I saw a cherry coke can in a bush. Using some wire cutters, I snipped out a little rectangle of coke can, and rolled it around the spark plug threads so they were just about covered. I stuffed the whole lot into the hole and fuck me it went tight!

With the theme music from the A-team playing in my head, I threw everything back on the bike and headed off. About 5 miles later it went Spluff! again but i reasoned that the theory was sound so I made another shim with my cherry coke can (thinking of it like Tom Hanks thought about his football in Castaway) and that one lasted over 100 miles, getting me to college and back every day until i got it properly fixed.

And the rest is history.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 10:36, Reply)