Stupid Noob - The Sequel

Heh - so, with the leak gone, and the petc0ck behaving,  I decided to take her for a test spin - about 8 miles. I did this at night, and she performed beautifully - no leak, not stalling - the job was a complete success.

So, the  next morning I grabbed some rags and am going to clean her up. Whoa! The tool kit cover was missing!  Here is what happened...To pull the spark plug to test for TDC, I needed the tool kit  spark plug wrench, so I took the kit out, left the door hanging, but not locked. When it's  hanging in its spot without a tool kit in there, it looks as if it's on correctly, so when I was checking the machine out before the ride, the toolkit door looked ok.

But, when I was riding it fell off - but where? Idunno! So I jumped on my bicycle and pedalled the 8 mile route that I took - no luck. On a whim, I rode the reverse of the route that I took and there it was - about 3 miles from home, only moderately smashed. It fell of the right side of the bike, and made its way to the oposite(left) side of 6 lane street and on the the sidewalk.

Why do motorcycle parts defy physics when they fall?  

I got it home, bent it back in to a rectangle, and was able to get it secured. The chrome is toast, and it's scratched up. I'm thinking of covering it with some thin polished diamond plate.

I spent most of the day familiarizing myself with all the fasteners makeing sure they we're all tight.

So, the next time I go out to by a new diagnostic tool for the garage, it's going to be a mirror to mount on the garage wall - whenever something is screwed up, all I have to do is look in to the mirror and I'll see where the problem started

Ah shedding- it is the third course in the motorcycle enineer's Sophmore year.  Then, after they learn to design parts so they fall off, they study the ones you'll want to remove, learning how to position them so you have to remove at least five other things making the ten minute job a 4 hour agro.