Nor should they be allowed to buy terminals, wire or electrical tape.

Grandson is getting tired of putting $200 a week worth of gas through his full sized Dodge pickup, so we found him another street bike. 2009 Yamaha V-Star 950.

Overall the bike is solid but it has a cobbled up fairing with a radio and FOUR speakers, among other owner mods over the years.

The power to the radio was jury-rigged and downright scary. No less than 6 non-waterproof butt connectors. No consideration at all given to how the wire was routed, doubt they even took the tank off. Hot lead just stripped and crammed under a mini spade fuse. Another set of wires just cut off, bare ends flopping around in the battery tray, other end flopping around by the steering neck and not connected to anything.

Mini-ape hangers with everything extended to work...EXCEPT the wires for the front brake light switch.

Don't even get me started on the home made fairing mounts.

Oh, and some SERIOUSLY obnoxious Cobra straight pipes with no baffles...

Nothing that can't be fixed and the price was right.

I would say it's not owning those things that matter but rather he needs a good education on proper quality work but I get your point.
I see sooooo many rats nest computer/network wiring in my area of work and it is sickening albeit profitable.
So find a teachable moment for your grandson.

quote:

find a teachable moment for your grandson.

The way that I read Paul's post, the grandson did not create this chapuza*. The Yamaha was in this condition when the previous owner sold it to Paul and grandson, but the price was right, so they decided to buy it and take care of the problems.

---

*chapuza (Spanish) noun: a mess, a botched job, a "Rube Golberg."

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

find a teachable moment for your grandson.

The way that I read Paul's post, the grandson did not create this chapuza*. The Yamaha was in this condition when the previous owner sold it to Paul and grandson, but the price was right, so they decided to buy it and take care of the problems.

---

*chapuza (Spanish) noun: a mess, a botched job, a "Rube Golberg."

Correct.

However, as "we" (read, me while grandson watches) un-fornicate it, he'll be learning how to do it right, or at least better.

Now that the Lotus is gone, I've got eye on picking up a project bike.
Hopefully no gremlins lurking other than age/idle sitting time repairs/restoration.

You know you are in trouble when you see splices of twisted wire and masking tape covering said splices.

No wire nuts?

They seem to be standard issue for wiring up cooling fans instead of replacing the $12 switch.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
You know you are in trouble when you see splices of twisted wire and masking tape covering said splices.

The pros use duct tape.

My last project bike was a Suzuki GT550, the 2 stroke triple.

It did indeed have wire nuts and even a length of 14 gauge extension cord wire, as well as a couple of yards of electrical tape and a household light switch!

I had a GT 550 around about 1985. just one summer. Only two stroke I owned.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
My last project bike was a Suzuki GT550, the 2 stroke triple.

It did indeed have wire nuts and even a length of 14 gauge extension cord wire, as well as a couple of yards of electrical tape and a household light switch!

Lost the pair of small beacon lights one night on a fire truck. Got back to the station and lo and behold they were wired with extension cord wiring.

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
I had a GT 550 around about 1985. just one summer. Only two stroke I owned.

I had its baby brother, the GT500 twin, in the late 70s/ early 80s. Inly two stroke I ever owned as well. First bike (non-human-powered), actually.

You know that sound a motorcycle tire makes when you're airing it up after mounting a new tire and the bead pops over the shoulder of the rim?

Jarod didn't and I think he might have created some extra laundry when the tire said BANG!

Am I wrong for laughing at him? If so, do I care?

Hell it made me laugh, and I wasn't there.

My Dad bought a rental property from a guy who raced cars as a hobby. The garage was so full of stuff that the inspector couldn't see the wiring even though it was open studs.

After the guy moved out, Dad found 120 and 220V just twisted together without any insulation.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

I used to build and sell custom Harleys for a living. We had a guy that we knew bring his custom built by another "well known" local builder in for a "occasional" electrical issue he was having.

No problem, I says, we can take a look.

We ended up having the bike for a bit over two weeks and had to rewire the entire bike from scratch, along with fixing a whole bunch of other misc. "problems" that we found in the process.

The entire bike was wired with speaker wire and.... wait for it.... TELEPHONE WIRE!!! Yes thin, flimsy, solid core telephone wire. The guy had pieces of wire with 8-10 butt connectors just to get a piece of wire 12" long.

The really sad part is that was only one of many from that same builder that we damn near rebuilt from the ground up over the years. He did build nice LOOKING bikes, but that was all they were was nice looking.

Vehicle upfitters like van conversions, motor homes and emergency vehicles at times have been notorious for using one color of wire for many circuits.

It’s all fun and games until you and a friend are working on one, you yell “Check the white wire” and you hear the reply “Which one, they’re all white at the fuse panel.”

Homeland Security had a Situation Room in New Orleans. After Katrina it was under 8 feet of water.

So, they had a great idea. Get a mobile situation room, AKA a custom motor home.

Got it built in Florida and wired there also. Homeland Security sent a guy down to look at it before they took possession. He took extensive pictures of the wiring. It was a total loss. So they paid the contractor for the useless wiring and drove it down to somewhere around New Orleans and paid another company to rewire the whole Situation Room part of the thing.

They then drove it to Nellis AFB for testing and completion. I got to see the second wiring job first hand. Took the Homeland Security technicians around 4 days to rewire the entire thing...again.

So the taxpayers paid for the wiring of this van 3 times total before it was right.

To add to the fire truck and lamp cord story.

Got it into a bay at the station that night and first thing went to the fuse panel, right?
Fuse panel, most of the fuses were dead. Pulled the panel, most of them had been cut out of the circuit and replaced by inline holders aka the black plastic Buss brand. Seems the factory panel had loose and broken clips together with corrosion rendering it useless.

Now he fun starts trying to figure out where the fuse holders were and what they controlled. Seems twenty five years of farming out all work to one of several garages in town caught up to it. We used a label maker to tag the wiring for the next unfortunate that had to work on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
Homeland Security had a Situation Room in New Orleans. After Katrina it was under 8 feet of water.

So, they had a great idea. Get a mobile situation room, AKA a custom motor home.

Got it built in Florida and wired there also. Homeland Security sent a guy down to look at it before they took possession. He took extensive pictures of the wiring. It was a total loss. So they paid the contractor for the useless wiring and drove it down to somewhere around New Orleans and paid another company to rewire the whole Situation Room part of the thing.

They then drove it to Nellis AFB for testing and completion. I got to see the second wiring job first hand. Took the Homeland Security technicians around 4 days to rewire the entire thing...again.

So the taxpayers paid for the wiring of this van 3 times total before it was right.

They should’ve given up and just started cooking meth in it out in the desert. Would’ve been cheaper.