geddyt
07-09-2006, 07:14 PM
I know the first rule of Fight Club is to not talk about Fight Club (you'll see...), but this story is just too bizarre to not share. It's kinda long, but I think worth the read.
So I've never been a good sleeper, and the fact that I now work shiftwork (12 hour shifts, half of them days and half nights) has only made matters worse. And I've been working a LOT of overtime lately to pay for bike parts. I need the parts because I've been rebuilding my street bike after a huge crash at PR a couple of months ago. Pretty much just buying the parts as I get the money (it's been a long, ongoing battle).
Two weeks ago the major battle was with the lower engine mount bolts. Because my frame sliders were destroyed in the crash, and because I was stupid enough to lose the OE bolts when installing the sliders, I had to order up some new ones from the local stealership. They said they'd show up on Friday (so 7/1). But when I called them on Friday, they were backordered from Honda. Great. So after some internet searching, I stumbled upon the AWESOME site racebolts.com (http://www.racebolts.com), from which I ordered a pair of titanium replacement bolts. While waiting for the bolts to arrive, I figured I'd go down to the local hardware store and pick up some plane jane steel bolts to put in there just so I could ride it to the shop to get tires swapped. I picked up a pair of the only M12 bolts they had and brought them home. Unfortunately, the thread pitch was different (1.5 and I needed 1.25), so they didn't work. Oh well, would just have to wait. I don't remember what exactly I did with the worthless bolts after trying them out, but I must have left them somewhere easily accessible...
So I carried on tinkering with this and that when I had spare time or when I couldn't sleep, making it more and more resemble the bike it's supposed to be, and just this last week I finally saved up enough to buy all of the rest of the parts that I needed and was rolling up my sleeves and trying to get the bike finished... in between 12 hour day shifts at work... Wednesday night I set up a drop light and worked until 1:30 at night. I put on every body panel except the ones covering the missing engine mount bolts, wired and installed new front and rear blinkers, and various this and that. Then I went to bed and struggled to sleep until my alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning for work.
I didn't notice much in the morning, but the next evening when I got home from work and began working on the bike, I started to notice little... oddities. I probably wouldn't have thought much of any of them by themselves, but the more things I found, the more I started to realize it wasn't all just in my head. For instance, the first thing I noticed was that the bike was about three feet further from my house than it was the previous night. I had been working on it in my driveway, but pulled it under my house's rear eaves when it started sprinkling on the 4th. Pretty much right up against the house next to my rear porch steps. Only NOW it was back half into the driveway: a full two or three foot move! And since the weather's been so nice, I haven't been cleaning up after myself every night I work. I would just leave all of the tools I used next to the bike on the porch. And I had taken all of the bolts that I removed when I took off the front fender and lined them up in order on either side of the front wheel for replacement. Only now they were all gone. All of the tools, all of the bolts and screws. In fact, it dawned on me that the place had been completely cleaned up. All of my tools were put away and I found all of the bolts in a little paper bag on top of the toolbox.
So I asked my roommate why he moved my bike and put all of my stuff away. "I didn't touch your bike or your stuff, Man. I don't know what you're talking about." I asked my girlfriend the same question and she had a similar answer. Nobody else had been at my house or would have any reason to mess with my stuff even if they were. I mean, what vandal leaves all of the valuable tools behind and instead just puts things away neatly to mess with someone?
At this point I noticed the thing that REALLY started to make me uneasy: I have a PitBull one-man rear stand--the kind with the lever that runs forward along the side of the bike instead of behind it. It was in place under the swingarm, only it was backwards. With the lever arm facing back into the driveway. I KNOW it hadn't been like that the day before! What the hell was going on!?
But I shook it off and kept working. By this morning (Sunday), the bike was totally put together except for the lower cowels so that I could install the lower engine mount bolts. And the bolts? Titanium and totally cool. And in my hand via the FedEx man. So I went back to my bike to install the last piece of the puzzle and was at first confused. I couldn't seem to find where the bolts went. It took me about a full horrible minute to realize why: There were already bolts in the holes. At this I started to totally freak out. I knew I didn't move the bike. I knew I didn't put away my tools and hardware. I knew I didn't pull the rear stand, turn it around, and jack the bike back up backwards. And I sure as HELL knew that I didn't install engine mount b--wait... The horrible realization suddenly dawned on me. The only bolts they could possibly be were the ones from the hardware store. The ones with the wrong thread pitch. There was only one way to find out: take them out and look. I opened the socket drawer in my toolbox and searched for the right sized socket. With no luck. Finally, I found it by itself in the top bin of the toolbox with the big wrenches and safety wire and whatnot. Strange. But I popped it on a breaker bar, anyway, and went after the bolts. I had to pull with my full weight to break the first bolt loose. And it took some serious torque to remove it the rest of the way. The other bolt (and I'll point out that they're different length bolts and were installed on the correct sides) was equally tough to remove. And both were covered in tiny shards of what used to be threads in my engine block.
I almost pulled out my phone and had myself committed.
The only explanation I have for the strange events is that at some point in the two and a half hours bewteen working on the bike and getting up for work on Wednesday night, I fell asleep, got up while STILL asleep, went outside, removed the cover from my bike, took it off the rear stand, backed it up three feet, put it BACK on the stand BACKWARDS, found the wrong-sized hardware store bolts, found the proper socket for them in my toolbox, hooked it to my heavy torque wrench (which I found sitting on a chair next to the bike the next night and didn't think much of it), and proceeded to install both bolts--all the way in, machining threads as I went (a feat which I can only assume would require about 80-100 ft.-lb. repeatedly for about five minutes of wrenching on each bolt), put all of the tools laying out away (except for the socket, which I put in the wrong place, and the torque wrench, which I left on the chair), picked up all of the bolts around the bike and filled a baggie with them, put the cover back on the bike, and went back to bed. Oh yeah, and to make things stranger, I even apparently applied Loctite to the bolts...
I mean, is something like this even POSSIBLE!? How do you pull on a big wrench that hard for that long without waking yourself up!? I mean, the threads are completely destroyed. But in spite of desperately trying to think up another explanation (maybe vandals, neighbors, etc.), nothing adds up save for the sleepwalking theory. I mean, have I been starting up Fight Clubs in any of your cities?...
Which brings me to another important point: Does anyone have any tips on how to go about fixing this mess? A guy at work suggested I use a Helicoil, but they look kinda flimsy and I doubt there's enough material in the engine mount to drill it out that much bigger and maintain its strength. I think drilling it 1mm oversize and retapping for a 1mm bigger bolt would be sketchy, too, for the same reason: wouldn't compromise engine mount strength? Also, an M13x1.25 bolt does not seem to be something that actually exits... I'm thinking of maybe just retapping the threads to the proper pitch--mainly to clean them up--and then install the right bolts, dipped in JB Weld. The downside would be that it would make it near impossible to remove the engine from the frame in the future. I'm also thinking about maybe getting longer bolts and just nutting them on the other side of the mount. Any other ideas?
http://procrasti-nation.net/media/projectmayhem.jpg
So I've never been a good sleeper, and the fact that I now work shiftwork (12 hour shifts, half of them days and half nights) has only made matters worse. And I've been working a LOT of overtime lately to pay for bike parts. I need the parts because I've been rebuilding my street bike after a huge crash at PR a couple of months ago. Pretty much just buying the parts as I get the money (it's been a long, ongoing battle).
Two weeks ago the major battle was with the lower engine mount bolts. Because my frame sliders were destroyed in the crash, and because I was stupid enough to lose the OE bolts when installing the sliders, I had to order up some new ones from the local stealership. They said they'd show up on Friday (so 7/1). But when I called them on Friday, they were backordered from Honda. Great. So after some internet searching, I stumbled upon the AWESOME site racebolts.com (http://www.racebolts.com), from which I ordered a pair of titanium replacement bolts. While waiting for the bolts to arrive, I figured I'd go down to the local hardware store and pick up some plane jane steel bolts to put in there just so I could ride it to the shop to get tires swapped. I picked up a pair of the only M12 bolts they had and brought them home. Unfortunately, the thread pitch was different (1.5 and I needed 1.25), so they didn't work. Oh well, would just have to wait. I don't remember what exactly I did with the worthless bolts after trying them out, but I must have left them somewhere easily accessible...
So I carried on tinkering with this and that when I had spare time or when I couldn't sleep, making it more and more resemble the bike it's supposed to be, and just this last week I finally saved up enough to buy all of the rest of the parts that I needed and was rolling up my sleeves and trying to get the bike finished... in between 12 hour day shifts at work... Wednesday night I set up a drop light and worked until 1:30 at night. I put on every body panel except the ones covering the missing engine mount bolts, wired and installed new front and rear blinkers, and various this and that. Then I went to bed and struggled to sleep until my alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning for work.
I didn't notice much in the morning, but the next evening when I got home from work and began working on the bike, I started to notice little... oddities. I probably wouldn't have thought much of any of them by themselves, but the more things I found, the more I started to realize it wasn't all just in my head. For instance, the first thing I noticed was that the bike was about three feet further from my house than it was the previous night. I had been working on it in my driveway, but pulled it under my house's rear eaves when it started sprinkling on the 4th. Pretty much right up against the house next to my rear porch steps. Only NOW it was back half into the driveway: a full two or three foot move! And since the weather's been so nice, I haven't been cleaning up after myself every night I work. I would just leave all of the tools I used next to the bike on the porch. And I had taken all of the bolts that I removed when I took off the front fender and lined them up in order on either side of the front wheel for replacement. Only now they were all gone. All of the tools, all of the bolts and screws. In fact, it dawned on me that the place had been completely cleaned up. All of my tools were put away and I found all of the bolts in a little paper bag on top of the toolbox.
So I asked my roommate why he moved my bike and put all of my stuff away. "I didn't touch your bike or your stuff, Man. I don't know what you're talking about." I asked my girlfriend the same question and she had a similar answer. Nobody else had been at my house or would have any reason to mess with my stuff even if they were. I mean, what vandal leaves all of the valuable tools behind and instead just puts things away neatly to mess with someone?
At this point I noticed the thing that REALLY started to make me uneasy: I have a PitBull one-man rear stand--the kind with the lever that runs forward along the side of the bike instead of behind it. It was in place under the swingarm, only it was backwards. With the lever arm facing back into the driveway. I KNOW it hadn't been like that the day before! What the hell was going on!?
But I shook it off and kept working. By this morning (Sunday), the bike was totally put together except for the lower cowels so that I could install the lower engine mount bolts. And the bolts? Titanium and totally cool. And in my hand via the FedEx man. So I went back to my bike to install the last piece of the puzzle and was at first confused. I couldn't seem to find where the bolts went. It took me about a full horrible minute to realize why: There were already bolts in the holes. At this I started to totally freak out. I knew I didn't move the bike. I knew I didn't put away my tools and hardware. I knew I didn't pull the rear stand, turn it around, and jack the bike back up backwards. And I sure as HELL knew that I didn't install engine mount b--wait... The horrible realization suddenly dawned on me. The only bolts they could possibly be were the ones from the hardware store. The ones with the wrong thread pitch. There was only one way to find out: take them out and look. I opened the socket drawer in my toolbox and searched for the right sized socket. With no luck. Finally, I found it by itself in the top bin of the toolbox with the big wrenches and safety wire and whatnot. Strange. But I popped it on a breaker bar, anyway, and went after the bolts. I had to pull with my full weight to break the first bolt loose. And it took some serious torque to remove it the rest of the way. The other bolt (and I'll point out that they're different length bolts and were installed on the correct sides) was equally tough to remove. And both were covered in tiny shards of what used to be threads in my engine block.
I almost pulled out my phone and had myself committed.
The only explanation I have for the strange events is that at some point in the two and a half hours bewteen working on the bike and getting up for work on Wednesday night, I fell asleep, got up while STILL asleep, went outside, removed the cover from my bike, took it off the rear stand, backed it up three feet, put it BACK on the stand BACKWARDS, found the wrong-sized hardware store bolts, found the proper socket for them in my toolbox, hooked it to my heavy torque wrench (which I found sitting on a chair next to the bike the next night and didn't think much of it), and proceeded to install both bolts--all the way in, machining threads as I went (a feat which I can only assume would require about 80-100 ft.-lb. repeatedly for about five minutes of wrenching on each bolt), put all of the tools laying out away (except for the socket, which I put in the wrong place, and the torque wrench, which I left on the chair), picked up all of the bolts around the bike and filled a baggie with them, put the cover back on the bike, and went back to bed. Oh yeah, and to make things stranger, I even apparently applied Loctite to the bolts...
I mean, is something like this even POSSIBLE!? How do you pull on a big wrench that hard for that long without waking yourself up!? I mean, the threads are completely destroyed. But in spite of desperately trying to think up another explanation (maybe vandals, neighbors, etc.), nothing adds up save for the sleepwalking theory. I mean, have I been starting up Fight Clubs in any of your cities?...
Which brings me to another important point: Does anyone have any tips on how to go about fixing this mess? A guy at work suggested I use a Helicoil, but they look kinda flimsy and I doubt there's enough material in the engine mount to drill it out that much bigger and maintain its strength. I think drilling it 1mm oversize and retapping for a 1mm bigger bolt would be sketchy, too, for the same reason: wouldn't compromise engine mount strength? Also, an M13x1.25 bolt does not seem to be something that actually exits... I'm thinking of maybe just retapping the threads to the proper pitch--mainly to clean them up--and then install the right bolts, dipped in JB Weld. The downside would be that it would make it near impossible to remove the engine from the frame in the future. I'm also thinking about maybe getting longer bolts and just nutting them on the other side of the mount. Any other ideas?
http://procrasti-nation.net/media/projectmayhem.jpg