ALWAYS! PRE-OP YOUR BIKE!My story..

[junior112]

Hey guys so I figured i'd share a quick story with some fun pics.

So when I was 17 my dad bought me my first bike, a beautiful 98 GS500E. It was love at first sight. I rode that thing everywhere,  school, work, joy rides, rain, sleet, or snow. Litterally. In the Oklahoma flat roads and little turns. It was great! I was in tech school for motorcycles and small engine repair, tearing apart motors and putting them in vehicles the didn't belong ( GSX-R1000 in raptor quad frame). We built a chopper and a tricked out Kawasaki Mule.

Our instructor always told us inspect your vehicle before you get on it. Look for any anomalies and anything not right. Yeah sure got it. 17 year old bad ass, "I know my bike and know when it's not right."

Straight from there rode to work at a Honda/suzuki dealer near Tulsa, OK. Bike rode fine.

On the way home my engine cut out. No big deal just ran out of fuel, switch to reserve, start it up on the fly and keep going. It dies again... Something must be wrong, DUH! Pull over, take a look and notice a lot of oil.. Hmm must've blown a gasket, NBD.  Get home, clean it up, can't find where it's leaking from, so I load it back on the trailer and take it to tech school.

Skipping details, Get the motor out and start removing the top end and what jumps out to surprise me?

My connecting rod bent at a 45 degree...... 

Bike TKO so I take it home... Minimum wage job can't afford all the parts so it sits, and sits, and sits.

I grow up move to Cali for military purposes, 6 years pass and my dad brings me my bike.

Bought a "not so new" motor and start rebuilding it.

Looking more into the old motor to see what I can salvage I find some more damage.








For comparison here is what the "good side" looks like.


So, maybe you're wondering, how did this happen? Me too. What I do know is,
My tachometer cable had "fallen" out so one side is getting oil the other side wasn't.
So, one side is chugging away and the other is seizing. when it seized the good side kept going.

All this is now the reason I do a once over everytime I get on a bike. Bikes are too amazing to sit and die in a garage....