I received the taller sissybar for the Roadie, yesterday. I spent the evening taking the worthless, OEM sissybar off and putting the taller one on, with the luggage rack. It looks GREAT!! It looks more proportionally correct, and it's tall enough to support motorcycle luggage. w00t!! I want to install a 12V adapter so I can run a GPS and/or charge my cell phone, and I'll be ready to start hitting the road for really long road trips!

That installation went so well, I thought I'd go ahead and hook up the Stebel Nautilus horn that I bought a couple months ago, to replace the anemic OEM horn. That installation went pretty smoothly until I got to the point of hooking up the battery terminal cable, which should have been the easiest part of things, but no... As usual, NOTHING can ever be easy! As I was screwing the bolt into the battery terminal, it slipped out of my fingers and disappeared into the engine, somewhere.

G'ahhhhhh!!!

I hunted for it and hunted for it, in vain. I had to have that bolt. One little bolt. Or else the motorcycle is worthless and inert. With a sigh, I pulled the side covers, hoping I would see it. I didn't see it. Grrrr.... Then I pulled the battery out. I still didn't see it!

In short, I basically tore the motorcycle apart, looking for this one stupid bolt. I fished a magnet down into all the wiring and stuff, hoping I could find it, but the bolt is zinc-plated, I think. Anyway, it's not magnetic. (Of course not! THAT would be too easy!) I straddled the bike and shook the piss out of it, hoping to dislodge the bolt from wherever it had fallen. No luck.

I finally went over to my drawer of miscellaneous fasteners and found a bolt that fit the battery terminal and put the bike all back together. By this point, I was tired, dirty, greasy, and very pissed.

I think that bolt went to the same place that single socks go, when you put them in the dryer. You can put ten socks into the washing machine, take ten socks out, put ten socks into the dryer, and when they are finished drying, you only have nine socks left. WTF???

There are some mysteries that science will never solve...

So... Anyway: This morning, I'm riding to work and think, I haven't tested my new horn... So, I hit the button. HOLY CRAP!!!!! It about scared me into wrecking the bike! OMG!!! I guarantee that the oblivious cellphone-yacking, SUV-driving soccer-moms who are trying to kill me out there, will wake the hell up, should I have need to get their attention!




Anyway... That bolt is gone, gone, gone... I just hope it doesn't decide to become dislodged when I'm doing 80 mph down the highway.

Rest assured Frank that the bolts/nuts/screws/small tools/etc end up in what someone here referred to as a mechanical black hole. They're gone. Period. however once in a millennium one or two do escape. Depending on whether Murphy's Law is going strong that day depends on when and where the object will end up. It happens in cars and trucks too but on a larger scale sometimes. Here's hoping the bolt reappeared in a safe place, like under a heavy object, in the garage. Ride safe.

Greyphart

Thanks, Greyphart. It's crazy... My motto for working in the garage is, "Nothing, but NOTHING, can ever be easy!"

On the rare occasion that things really do go smoothly, I'm so surprised that I stand there for a moment like Wile E. Coyote, waiting for an anvil to fall on my head.

Did ya see the tech article on how to flip your roadie and shake out the bolts?.......

I lost a small screw while working on my bike once. Looked all over. Tipped the bike. Tried a magnet. No go. Finally found a hardware that had a screw I could use. Got home and grabbed the screwdriver to put the new screw in. And there was the old screw I had "lost" still stuck on the magnetic tip and all ready to use. I swear I could hear it laughing at me.

Flashback wrote:
Did ya see the tech article on how to flip your roadie and shake out the bolts?.......

Believe me, if there were such an article, I would be on it like a fat kid on cake.

Musky wrote:
I lost a small screw while working on my bike once. Looked all over. Tipped the bike. Tried a magnet. No go. Finally found a hardware that had a screw I could use. Got home and grabbed the screwdriver to put the new screw in. And there was the old screw I had "lost" still stuck on the magnetic tip and all ready to use. I swear I could hear it laughing at me.

D'oh!!

greyphart wrote:
Rest assured Frank that the bolts/nuts/screws/small tools/etc end up in what someone here referred to as a mechanical black hole. They're gone. Period. however once in a millennium one or two do escape. Depending on whether Murphy's Law is going strong that day depends on when and where the object will end up. It happens in cars and trucks too but on a larger scale sometimes. Here's hoping the bolt reappeared in a safe place, like under a heavy object, in the garage. Ride safe.

Greyphart

I think I found one of those "missing" pieces of hardware once. Or should I say, it found me. Not too long after I got the Road Star I was cruising down the highway when something large and metallic appeared out of nowhere, bounced off the pavement hitting me square in the left shin and countinued upward until it met the bottom of the gas tank. Luckily for me it hit the tank, 'cause if it had made contact with my head or face it probably would've knocked me out. Or at best, hurt really Fing bad and made me loose control. Luckily the tank wasn't too badly damaged and you can only see it if you're down on all fours looking up. But like Grayphart said; It's like a blackhole opened up and suddenly this metalic object was heading straight for me... Go figure!!!

In The Wind,
Aaron

Frank, I'm glad you don't work on Airplanes!

I know the feeling thou, I've spent hours searching for that screw, nut, bolt piece of wire, a clip.... 21 years as an Aircraft mechanic in the Navy and eventually found every part/piece. No one ever crashed because of me! Cars, trucks, boats and bikes are a lot differant, you can pull over and wait for help, Aircraft fall out of the sky.

Hope the screw shows up in a rag or on the garage floor so you will sleep better.

Oh, I've worked on helicopters and ultralights... That's why having bolts just disappear like that, drives me crazy! Plus, it's one of the battery terminal bolts. It's not like it's any other fastener that I can just substitute, although that's what I ended up doing. Not real happy about it, though.