I got a call from a friend last night about 8:00 PM. He was stranded on the side of the road after just gassing up his '00 metric cruiser which I put
together a couple of years ago for him. I grabbed some tools and headed out to where he was and grabbed the ramp just in case. When I got there gas was pouring
out of every tube hanging from the carbs. The bike wouldn't start and acted like it wasn't getting any gas. We took it to his contractor's shop and
took the carbs off. After partially dis-assembling his mikuni flatside-like carbs we found a huge wasp in the carb bowl. The body was jammed between the bowl
and the float jamming up the floats. Took some carb cleaner and flushed out the carbs and blew bug parts out of every channel and passage in that carb. Used
some compressed air and did the same again.
This is a modern epa carb - it has vacuum tubes, filters you name it. How a bug got into the carb is beyond me. His bike ran 10 times better when we were done.
One for the books- thought I'd seen it all.
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A bug in the works - when nature meets machine
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 Duncan Idaho |
A bug in the works - when nature meets machine |
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Posts: 658 (07/02/08 8:21 AM) |
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oldhemi |
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Posts: 2049 (07/02/08 8:36 AM) Senior Member |
Thats a funny story!
Common occurance down here in Texas. We have a type of wasp called a "mud-duaber". It builds small nests out of mud. Industrious little buggers. I had a set of carbs in my garage where one of the carbs was a solid hunk of mud nest. If there is an opening, the MF'ers will get in there. I HATE wasps and hornets of any kind. Yellow jackets are the worst. Honey bees I can handle.
I'm old enough to know better.... yeah right, like that's ever gonna happen oldhemi@sbcglobal.net
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Red Good |
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Posts: 1612 (07/02/08 8:44 AM) Senior Member |
In thru the vent tubes . Not a big deal on a 4 stroke motor but I had a customers sled fresh rebuild in late winter and only got breakin miles on it all ok .
Fired it up the next fall and some lil sucker had laid a ton of eggs in the vent tubes , enough to restrict things and burnt the motor down !! Cleaned
everything and fresh pistons and rebores and runs fine .Red
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OV |
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Posts: 67 (07/02/08 8:50 AM) |
Only in Sask they say! Is that why your switchn' homes? Bug in your @SS#.
Sorry had to make a coment before ya leave!! |
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 kevinr13 |
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Posts: 322 (07/02/08 6:43 PM) |
Installed a Injection pump on a 7.3 Diesel awhile back & customer called complaning about low power. I got the tech II out retimed it dead on Still low
power . Pulled airfilter & theres a rat looking at me. He had his insides hanging out of his mouth. Some reason after the rat was removed it ran
better....lol
H.C.C.M.F Local 6978
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23tbucket |
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Posts: 149 (07/02/08 7:54 PM) |
Reminds me of an incident a few years ago. I had to get a 350 cid single cylinder pumpjack motor running that had been down for several months. As I was removing the sparky I heard a buzzing sound...stopped when I stopped turning...would start buzzing when I started to turn out the plug again. Once I removed the plug a whole swarm of friggin wasps came out of the hole and then started to come out of the mufflar as well. I made a bee-line (pun intended) for the service truck before any of the angry mothers got a chance to sting. With my years of expertise in matters such as fires, explosions, sour gas leaks, and now this.... I knew exactly the steps to take........long fast ones, and lots of them! LOL. Came back later in the cool early morning when the wasps would still be too cold to move around. I quickly put in a new spark plug , disconnected the shutdowns, opened the fuel, set the decompression, cranked it over 3 or 4 times, flipped down the decompression lever and the engine fired right now and went into high idle . I had burning wasps and wasp paper flying all over the place. What a sight! There were flames 10 feet long coming from the mufflar. It took a few minutes to clear everything out...the smell took a bit longer! The exhaust valve must have been open and piston at bottom. The wasps found there way into the cylinder thru the mufflar, past the exhaust valve and had a wonderful warm dry place for their paper castle. I do think they had the major portion of the nest in the mufflar due to the amount of shit that came out..wouldn't have been room for all this material and the piston at top ( dry hydraulic?) Wasps and hornets love the taste and smell of hot antifreeze...that thars another tale. Wasps and hornets love the smell of hot diesel fuel.....that too is another story. |
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naguethey |
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Posts: 1396 (07/02/08 8:28 PM) |
Back on my farm in illinois a few years ago. I had a lil metric bobber stored away for the winter in my gargae/ pole barn building... Well it got warm enough
to go riding one weekend in the middle of febuary. So I went out to fire it up and go for a spin. Couldn't get it to start right away. Which was
unusual..... Sputtered and shit like that. Then I finaly got it started and..............DOG food lots of it started coming out my f'ng pipes. And
newspaper and cardboard. Seems a mouse had been busy stealing food from my lazy watch dog. And built a nest up inside my straight pipes and then filled them
with about two bowls of food. Blew it all and the mouse all over the garage floor and the bike ran fine after that....
Then on my ford f150 truck I thought my clutch had gone out. 5 speed manual............ So I get a case of beer and corral a couple of my friends over to help me pull the trans and such to get to the clutch pack. Well after a afternoons work and a couple of hundred bucks on a new clutch to put in it. Come to find out I didn't even need it.................. Another fricking mouse had built a nest in my bell houseing of my trans in the clutch pack. The springs on the plate were completelly packed with pieces of foam from my truck seat back. The plastic liner protecting the seat cover. Monicals pizza napkins and caseys gas station reciepts and a dead mouse. All packed in there so tight from the plate spinning that it wouldn't allow the springs to move anymore lol..... Cleaned it all out put it back together and drove it on that clutch for 3 more years lol..................... I f'ng hate mice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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R7Chop |
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Posts: 1075 (07/03/08 7:10 AM) |
dude you need to get cats, ever since we got lots of cats around the house, no more mice, snakes, moles...paw prints on my cars, but no mice chewing up the
intreior/wiring...works for me..lol
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drifter662 |
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Posts: 454 (07/03/08 12:07 PM) |
Dead mice, Intentionally burning wasps........You all better be careful. the man will be at your door with an animal abuse complaint.
FUCKIN' YUKU!!
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Donny |
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Posts: 95 (07/03/08 12:49 PM) |
one little fly made his home in my speedo..fly specks on the face and glass...
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rigidchop |
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Posts: 666 (07/03/08 2:35 PM) Senior Member
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buddy of mine had a vulcan 750 and while getting it running for summer, walnuts started shooting out of the exhaust
 it was the funniest thing i had
ever seen. i bet at least 50 of them came out. i've heard that if yer gonna store your bike, to pack the pipes with steel wool, supposed to keep the little
booger out of there. i agree with the mud dobber thing as well, they can get in anywhere.
i know this guy who bought a pre-built chopper, and ten years later BAM, herpes, no shit, true story
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