OEM parts

[Deplorable, thank you!]

 So I get this Triumph Daytona 675 in for chain and sprockets and an oil change. he is a first time ever rider, first bike purchase ever, first time riding a motorcycle ever was this bike the day he bought it (where was someone with knowledge and brains to help guide this guy through his purchasing decisions....)- he put maybe 50 miles on it before it arrived here

I take it for a test ride when done and it works fine...

a week later customer comes pays bill and picks it up, he gets about a block away and the bike just dies. He pushes it back (downhill so not much of a push really) and complains "why didn't you fix this? I told you it died sometimes."

What can I really say...nothing on the work order about it, it worked fine for me when I started it a couple times and rode it once....

Anyways I look at it, it is clear it has zero fuel pressure and the exhaust servo is so damn loud and constantly moving you can't hear anything but that broken piece o shit........ But I am sure the pump is not even pumping (it obviously did when I rode it and when he started it and rode that block)

So we go to lift up the tank to take a peek

nope...... someone clocked the fuel pump wrong and the fuel line is kinked and tucked solidly under the airbox, but I can see some fantastical wiring now that a few things are off the bike (sarcasm.....some idgit previous owner destroyed the entire bike really)

anyways we are determined to get the tank off, all bolls out and trying to move it up and back, just back and tilt whatever- we can never get enough room under it to get even fingers in there to pinch the release buttons and pull off the fuel line and can't even touch to two electrical plug ins.......He finally lifts/tilts hard enough the plastic fuel feed of the pump simply snaps off
hello $700+ fuel pump.......

Well now we can see the electrical connectors are just bare wires shoved in on two of the connectors and the "oe" female square blade connector just falls out of the oe plastic female end on the other two (all these were just dangling now that the tank was up about 6")......... no wonder it has electrical and fuel pump issues

Anyways........... hours of searching, and about 100 miles of driving around to the places everyone said would have them locally- and they did not, nothing even close.... and I finally find on the internets two places that have these oe specific fuel pump connectors (japan and great britian)
 Japan gives no delivery date estimate and great Britain says the 30th....... minimum order needed so I order and get several to meet the minimum order... blah blah blah

fast forward about 8 hours later, I am closing down the 40+ windows I had opened hunting for these and one of the windows shows these in stock in new jersey at some other mom and pop motorcycle specific electrical connector place....wtf- how did I not see those earlier???
anyways, figuring they will surely get here faster and thus get this bike out of here sooner....... I order the same pieces from them too, they say in stock and "within 24 hours of order placement they will ship"

So I fully expect these to get here pretty quickly, I thought by the end of last week since that was only last Monday evening

So guess whose shipment got here first, today............... yes, Great Britian to Minnesota is faster than Jersey to MN aparently (yeah I know it is the personell problem, not an actual shipping problem)

I think it is pathetically funny really......because two years ago I needed a camshaft (only one in the world was overseas) and rocker arms for a GPZ1100, and those rocker arms were in CA and ............ the camshaft got here a week before the rocker arms did (all new oem parts ordered through oem dealers) go figure..........

Anyways, so when I did pull out the old fuel pump......... tank was full with over atleast a cooffee cup of water (the drain tube through the tank from under the cap- was rusted through, everytime it rains or gets washed water around the cap is going straight into the fuel...........ugh

I did get that rusty plugged up line cleared through and a rubber fuel line spliced over it inside the tank (after cutting the solid piece and removing about 6" of rusty crusty holy waste), we'll see if that does any good? I am suggesting he never let the bike sit in the rain or wash the fuel tank with water

So connectors on, fresh fuel, new fuel pump and it starts right up...woohoo, guess what I did find though...
no charging system and a battery that only had 11.9v (surprised that was enough to start it really)

Now in it for well over $1200.00 on top of the $2000 he paid for it a few weeks before bring it in, I guess he feels he is trapped and needs to fix the rest of the shitty bike....... man for the about 4k he is going to have in it before he can even ride it legally and reliably (it'll still be ugly and roached)..... he could have had something so much nicer than this crashed and rashed former trackday bike with no taillight nor brake light, no signals, missing bodywork, torn seat, butchered wiring harness and generally piece of shit bike.........

  I have a yellow mintish 09 R1 he could have had for only a few hundred more and it would have given him no issues and it has new tires, and so much more....and it is clean and pretty with the same miles (but...liter bike, they don't wear out unless you beat the shit out of them and don't take care of them)

oh so I went back at looked at his text messages.....yep when he first wrote he did mention the bike died on his way home from picking it up and didn't know if it was an issue, he towed it home but it started the next day (plus he rode it here to get the work without issue)
but a month later and here in person he wrote nothing about it on the drop off form and didn't say anything.........apparently I am now expected to remember every conversation and every detail and protect the dumbs from themselves ......... NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN

There is todays story.....making small talk in the bike help board.....because this bike needed tons of help- and we need some small talk happening on the forum.........

[Elk]

Quite a story.

One would think he would have heard the bike telling him "Do not buy me."

[Deplorable, thank you!]

you may be surprised how many people buy the cheapest bike on the internet or even get bikes for free then complain when it costs several hundred or even thousands to make them safe and reliable....

I hear far too often "that is more than I even paid for the bike"

and to that one can really only state the obvious........ "Do you want it safe and reliable with good tires etc or do you want to ride a unsafe pile o shit that may strand you or worse?"

Usually they swing to the safe and reliable but some have simply taken them (as I am all or nothing on that safety aspect, so piecemeal is not an option) and thought they and their buddies could get it "good enough"

I recently had someone show up who had purchased a used 09 KLR650 with 43000 miles and no service history and had not been licensed nor ridden in 3 years
He paid $700 for the bike and then complained at spending about the same to get a tune up, carb clean, chain and sprockets and brake pads- and would still need tires sometime in the not so distant future, yet he ran and out and spent about $200 on cosmetic shit before ever making it rideable with no compaints
 he sold it at a loss and bought a new CRF250 and has put about 1000 miles on that new bike

That just arrived today, he tried changing gearing himself and couldn't figure out how to get the c/s sprocket lock washer and bolts back on.......... -1/+3 on a CRF??? Well I guess he wants it to really scream at anything over 60mph?? He talks about riding up to north of the cities to get in the woods........ 70mph speed limit up 35E, I imagine the engine won't like that with his new gearing???

I always say, Common sense in none too common any more as we live in an era of smart phones and stupid people. and daily I am proven correct!

[Deplorable, thank you!]

Life expectancy of the fuel pump on the ZZR....... who knows really as I have seen some fail at sub 20,000 miles.....(user induced no doubt!)

but I got 97,560 miles out of mine before it failed and left me stranded about 42 miles south of Harrison when I was down there over the Labor day weekend, still rode about 1200 miles down there before this happened

Thumbing a ride back to the truck and hotel to change into clothes after an ice cold shower of atleast 10 minutes and go back and retrieve said stranded bike, was not the highlight of my trip.... Thankfully it was the last day of riding anyways so I did not really miss riding miles as much as being completely inconvenienced for about 4 hours of attempting a roadside repair/diagnosis in 95* heat with dewpoints in the 70's and super sketch cell phone reception

Thankfully the truck has super cold A/C as well, pushing a non operative 400# motorcycle up ramps (even my 8' long curved ramps) into a modern day full size truck (ie.......tailgate / bed height is stupid high) was no easy task and had me all hot and sweaty in no time flat......


 All things considered, 97,500+ miles with never once a single issue on the bike and not one problem ever.......... I still love my bike even after it letting me down this one time........
 There are not a lot of people who have even owned a bike that long nor with that many miles and even less so who have done so without any issues, good maintenance practices do pay rewards in terms of reliable service and safety......

A nice local motorist did stop and give me a ride, he even had a trailer behind with car with an engine hoist on it and said we could lay my bike on its side in the trailer...........umm  NO, not just no but HELL NO......... I was grateful for the ride but on what planet do you just throw a sportbike on its side and let it slide around on your steel grated piece o shit trailer and be completely ruined, because you guessed it- he had no tie downs, not even on that engine hoist?- and anyone who has been to AR near Harrison, there are no straight roads, and I could hear his engine hoists banging around front to back side to side on his trailer the whole drive back.... hicksville, apparently in hicksville it is okay to be unsafe and let shit get all beat up to save yourself 30 seconds of tie down time?
 I wasn't even sure his car would make it to Harrison it was such a pile, but it beat walking any further carrying 25lbs of gear and tank bag in the heat, and it did manage to get me there....

anonymous passer by, thank you for the ride and saving me much hassle and time walking further......... It appeared nobody was going to stop for the first 30 minutes or so as vehicle after vehicle just drove right by and without a house or town in sight it was looking like it would be a long walk......... it was about 3 miles to the first town we crossed through after he picked me up, so maybe in another hour I could have gotten that far and found a ride?