What's the strangest thing you ever found...

[tomale]

What is the strangest thing you ever found in a bike that you were rebuilding? This one gave me the creeps![:0]
The other day Terry and I were pulling the head and barrel off a barn fresh 350 Alpina. It looked to be in pretty good shape and the bike turned over but I thought that it should turn easier than it did. And then it did not turn at all. Have you figured it out yet? I hadn't! We pulled the pipe and the brace and loosed Head. The carb was missing but the intake manifold was plugged and wrapped with a plastic bag. The head looked fine and what I could see of the barrel, I saw no signs of scoring. I could not get the barrel off because the piston was stuck. We pulled on it and tapped on it with piece of wooden dowel (1 1/2") Finally, we were getting it to move and I looked under the barrel into the crank case and found what I thought was a lump of gasket. Have you figured it out yet? But it was too large. I reached in and pulled on it and to my [:I][:0] It was not a gasket.... It was slimmy and... and I suddenly figured out what it was. I jumped back screaming and the pain in my ears... from me yelling. After a few minutes, I regaind my composure and reached in and finally pulled it out. Yuk, It was a very dead mouse. I washed my hand four or five times and used santizer as well. I guess that i will be wearing rubber gloves from now on...It must of crawled in there sometime between when the carb was taken off and when the intake was sealed off.
We did managed to get the barrel off and found the crank case to be in a real mess. We cleand it out, my biggest concern was the... Are your ready? the mouse parts that could have been left in there along with what ever else he may have brought in to make it a comfortble home. It took some doing but we got it clean and the crank looks fine.
How about some of you guys, any strange stories?

Thom Green,I own and ride a 76 250 MC5 MX which I bought new.

[tmte123]

It's true. I swear, I was there.  But he didn't scream, he threw that little critter to the floor pretty fast.  And he forgot to tell about the funny smell coming from the motor after we yanked the header off.
I thought it was sort of fishy smelling.  Cod Liver oil pre-mix or something like that.  The various mouse parts that were flushed out were all unrecognizable, except the tail.  I thought it was piece of string at first.  Disgusting and hilarious at the same time.  The look on Thom's face when he realized what he had in his hand was great.  I was laughing so hard I almost peed.  The name of this Alpina is now El Ratonito,  the little mouse.  Hopefully El Ratonito will be running in the woods, soon.  Free again.

Not a Penton owner, but I have ridden one..Tomale's MC-5.  Currently ride a '75 XL-250, '78 TT500

[Kip Kern]

Thom  I just tore down a original 75 Maico MC250, the bike was complete and darn decent for $150.  I noted that mice have been in the airbox and thankfully, the carb slide was closed so the little fellows didn't make it to the engine (this side)  Pulled the pipe and noted that the piston blocked the exhaust port so I was a happy camper (the other side)!  While pulling the down pipe off, I noted it weighed about 50 lbs, to my surprise, I bumped it on the floor and cat food started coming out.  Well, I thought that the mice were hording food for the last 28 winters so I wanted to see how much food was there.  After about a 1/2 hour, I retrieved a complete large snow shovel of food from the pipe and reduced the pipe weight to about 15 lbs.  "The cats will be eating good at the Kern family household this week!"

[idiotboy]

Since the theme here seems to be mouse stories,here's mine.This past fall, I was given a Husky 430WR that had been sitting outside a couple years.The motor was rusted solid,and a critter had been living in the airbox.He had also eaten some of the wire insulation.For some reason, I decided to take the bike anyway.We loaded it in the van,threw in the spare rusty parts and away I went.About halfway home,I saw something near the passenger seat out of the  corner of my eye.You guessed it,the mouse was in my van,running around.I [rather quickly] pulled over and tried to find him.Opened the side door, no mouse.Passenger door, no mouse.Finally found him hiding under the spare,and chased him out of the truck with a stick.He ran down the street about a hundred feet and took a left into the bushes.A free bike is not always a good deal.

[tomale]

Boy that will get your motor running, (pun intended) I have had several close incounters with the little beasts. Right out of High school I spent the winter with my cousins in Kansas. They have a wheat farm and they raise some cattle too. One day we were taking a load of grain to town and As the truck got warm a mouse crawled out from under the dash and across my left foot and then under the seat. I think I must have put a dent in the cab of that truck. We jumped out and after a few minutes we were able to chase him/her out. It ran into the tall grass near by but It took me a bit longer recover. [8D]

Terry, Well maybe I did not really scream but It sure felt like it to me. Maybe I just yelled a bit. The rest of the day I felt like I had been violated. Yuk, and double yuk!
Another time I was remodeling a kitchen and we opened up a inside wall to find the skeltons of 25 or 30 mice. They must have followed each other and fell down a hole unable to get out. No wonder it smelled in there.

Thom Green,I own and ride a 76 250 MC5 MX which I bought new.

[DKWRACER]

This calls to note about what you ever did that was so stupid it deserves to be in "the box of shame" here goes...and "fess up" all us experts:
 At one point about 8 yrs back I acquired an Allstate 125, it was in fabulous shape and 100 percent condition, I proceeded to polish everything, and did a TE clean-up, at the unveiling with all my buds at a prestigous MC shop In Denver, All were waiting with baited breath to see and hear the mighty machine come to life, it DID!!! on the second kick.....OK cool now lets putt.....well it didn't putt cause the gearbox was EMPTY!!!! That cost me two cases, and will never be forgotten!!!
So now it's your turn......GIVE IT UP !!!!

[OhioTed]

Sounds like the mouses are most common.  Here's my "tail".  Some years back I pulled my '77 Yamaha IT400 out of the barn in the spring and upon opening up the airbox to pull and service the filter, found a mouse nest inside, complete with live baby mice nestled within.  Also, a few years ago I restored a '75 Honda MR175.  The bike came with a Hooker Header, but I was bound to acquire an oem pipe in order to complete the stock appearance.  None was to be found until I stopped at a salvage yard outside of Columbia, SC while we were in town to ride the enduro (can't remember the name) that was (is?) held the week before Daytona.  Anyway, they had a beautiful pipe for the bike, complete and intact, including the heat shield and spark arrestor.  Only problem, it was packed full of pecans.  I had a heck of a time getting them out.  Tried everything short of cutting the pipe open.  Finally thought I had them all, but first firing of the bike told me there was still an internal restriction.  Off comes the pipe one more time, and out fell the last pecan, all sooty on one side.  It was apparently stuck in there like a cork.  The bike ran great after that.

[DKWRACER]

Wanna hear a really good one?

Rick Seimen (monkey butt) seemed to have this feller call him up one day with a Can-Am that just would not run...now mind you Rick is a past champion on Can-am's, and no slouch when it comes to wrenching, after two days of very serious motor tuning and re-configuring and changing the Motor!!! HE finally gave up and piped "just where were you when the bike finally quit?

Well, says the reluctant owner, I was on a long muddy uphill and slipped and fell all the way back down the hill on the side of the bike!!! Guess you know the rest of the story!!!
Rick's book is a masterpiece, one for the library......

[OUCWBOY]

I had just re-ringed Randy Cleek's 250 Yamaha Flat Tracker. Took it out and ran it for a few hours. Thing was running sweet. Took it back home and parked it in the garage. Saturday afternoon rolled around and as we were loading up for Yukon, OK Saturday nite short track racing. I started up the Yamaha again and the thing was rattling and pingling like crazy. It sounded like the whole engine was falling apart. Seems that the wife had let the 3 yr old play in the garage. Well there were 3 screw drivers, 2 sockets and some toy stuffed in the pipe.

Donny Smith

[farmer58za]

No mouse stories here but plenty of insect ones. I brought home a bike that had been standing in someone's garden. The next morning, the bike and van were covered with a new web that the spider living in the steering head had spun in the night. An old bike usually averages about 3 spiders. I've bought bikes with ants nests inside the tyres. The ants also built a nest under the passenger floor mat of my car which was in daily use at the time. A large roach got into my car. I was unable to kill it and it lived there for a while until it ran up my trouser leg one morning. lol.

David

[metalkfab]

While I never found anything as good as Rob did in my bikes,I did find "missing" elements in my '75 125 Penton MX'r.Purchased this bike,it was a one/two kick starter,ran great and I was happy as a Lark.The man from Mars says I should check the airbox,(of course,after I ran about a tank of gas through it).Upon opening the cover up,it had a airfilter cage and shreds of the original Twin-Air filter there,the rest of the filter had been sucked into the engine and had fused itself to everything inside the engine.Luckily,DW had pitty on me and taught me how to tear down and clean and reassemble that motor (that's a whole 'nother story).I was amazed that the engine did start at all with the melted elements.

[cardojr]

I blew an ossified frog out of my cz low pipe -also had a couple of live bats drop out of a husky pipe that was hanging from a rafter in the barn. Almost gave me a @#$@#$ heart attack.
rob

[LynnCamp]

I have found all of the above - dead, alive and home grown - plus a number of other choice foreign items in my teenagers' bedroom closets -- and they are girls.... can't imagine if I had boys!!![xx(]  

We did wildlife rescue (including Coral Snakes) and raised tons of pets from Amazon parrots, various rodents and ferrets ... and so on up the food chain to dogs and horses. (not to mention the barn mice that would always try to get in the house to get out of the cold).  So escaped animals and hidden caches of food were always a challenge.  My fear was always that something would be under the hood when I would start the car.[xx(]yuk!

We have a lot of stories like the rescued woodpecker that fell in the toilet and surprised someone at an inopportune time .... oh well... enough rambling ... I will save the stories for Speedy's bar-b-que when there is a lull in the bench racing.

[Mick Milakovic]

My oldest son brought home an '88 Pontiac Fiero from a local farmer's back yard, complete with garter snakes!  Suckers came wiggling out of there when we pulled upholstery.

[Mark Annan]

Well I guess I share my story.  I have found plenty of bugs and mice in the nooks and crannies of various vehicles I have worked on.  Plenty of them have given me a start when they jump out after being disturbed.  The most exciting happened in a 53 Ford F1.  It happened when I was in High School.  I had bought the remains of the old truck off a friend of mine that lived about 20 miles down the highway from me.  

The truck didn't run so we had to tow it to my house.  We hooked a to logging chain up to the back of his truck and the front of my newly acquired project.  I got the great pleasure of steering (and trying to stop) the old truck at the end of that chain.  We devised a system of hand signals to communicate between vehicles.  We made it out of the barn and down the couple miles of country road with out too much excitement or difficulty.  Just had to be careful slowing down, the old truck didn't have much in the way of brakes.  We got out on the highway and started moving along at the minimum pace (45MPH).

After a couple miles of that I figured we could go a little faster so I signaled my friend to step it up.  About that time I had a little itch on my ankle.  I moved my other foot over and rubbed it a little and all was well.  When I put my foot back down it landed on something that had a little "give" to it.  I looked down to see what it might be.  I was a large black snake!  It probably was only about 4 feet long but in than cab of that truck it seemed like it was a least 40 feet.  And it wasn't just any old black snake.  It was a mommy.  There were at least a dozen little snaketts slithering around my feet trying to crawl into any dark, warm place they could find.  My pant legs seemed to be a favorite destination.  To say I didn't care for this situation would be a bit of an understatement.

I started flashing hand signals to my buddy ahead to pull the rig over.  He thought I was telling him to speed up.  So he did.  I kept signaling and he kept accelerating.  With both feet I stood on the brake pedal, as much to get above the snake pit at to slow the truck down.  It didn't do much good on either count.  I briefly thought about abandoning ship but instead just steered for the shoulder.  Brad finally got the idea that something was up when I about yanked his truck sideways off the road.  He let off the gas and pulled over.  Like he had any choice.  

I was out of the truck and doing the Get These Dammed Pants Off Running Dance before he even had his truck in park.  Turns out there was one little guy curled around my ankle and I wanted to make sure there were no other passengers along for this part of the ride.  I jumped around for about 5 minutes before I calmed down enough to tell Brad to go have a look in the truck.  He about jumped in front of a passing truck when he did.  Neither of us could muster the courage to crawl under the front of the truck and unhook the chain.  So we unhooked it from his truck and just left it, the truck, and the snakes there.  For about a week.  When we finally went back to get it I'm sure we looked like a couple monkeys jumping around checking to make sure all the snakes had departed.  

Never did finish that project.  Kind of lost my enthusiasm for it.

Mark A