[saket77]

Anyone who misses the satirical post (link in GTO's post) is missing something big in life.

Accepting ones mistake, that too in public, in today's high flying world is not easy . My respect to you for that.

Regards.

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by GTO

Also sharing the OP's satirical take on this - link.

Many thanks GTO for sharing this link.

@Riderzone - I have seen and learnt from many of your posts on the riding gear thread. Wasn't aware of the blog till now. Just read the satire as my very first read on your blog. You have a regular visitor now.

This made my day, thanks!

[yesyeswe]

Many I can't stop laughing and at the same time I feel bad for you and your motorcycle, but you gave up pretty soon. At least you should have assembled the easy components and then maybe asked a mechanic for help.

But it's very frustrating i know that, some years ago i had disassembled the headlight of my pulsar 180 to replace the bulb. Removing the screws and the bolts was fairly easy but it took me a lot of time put the contraption back, the weight of the headlight plus the sheer amount of wires inside. Finally i had to take the help of my father to hold the headlight assembly while i attempted to put the bolts back, somehow i did that, put i decided not to do it again myself.

Your writing skills are on point though.

P. S. You even disassembled the engine!!! Hats off to you
handsome IT engineer.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by RiderZone

After watching an unhealthy amount of Youtube restoration videos, I thought I’ll give it a go on my 2009 Pulsar 150 DTSi.
....
Here are the numbers for anybody interested, at least it wasn’t a financial catastrophe :

4500 – Trade in value of motorcycle if I’d bought a new Bajaj bike
7000 – Money spent on tools
2400 – Money recovered by selling the bike in scrap
4 Months - Time spent from start to fail

Well the grass is always greener on the other side.

If it helps, here's also a 10+ year old owner of a Pulsar 150 DTSi (2004 model) with a very similar conditioned bike at the end, who decided to just give it away for free; while I was overseas for a few years.

I would have got offers of less than 10k inr (probably much lesser) so thought the pending repairs on the bike might be an enough cost for the new buyer so just asked my friend to give it off to a watchman or a milkman (or sorts) who was looking for a vehicle.

Yes - the bike could have been salvaged better by spending upwards of 10-15k inr on it. It would have probably survived another 2-3 years of usage I guess. But in the end I'm happy I got ~10 years of happy memories with it. Took it over 10+ states across the country and more than 80k kilometers!

And that's the point you'll also give the maximum weightage I trust

[PrasannaDhana]

Hahaha!! Though tragic, your positive take on this issue is

@Riderzone, your avid reader and fan here. I must admit, I did miss your articles for some time in the middle.

Great you are back at writing. For some reason, it feels funny to read your write up without the swearing parts

PS: Just sending my RC390 which has a dead battery and a conked off fuel pump due to 8 months of non-usage. As someone said, best maintenance is to keep them running. Now that it's not happening, I am selling it off.

[Gansan]

Mistake no.5:

Not keeping the bike stock. I always love a stock restoration rather than trying funny and outlandish modifications.

It is always better to employ a mechanic. Even if we know what needs to be done, let him be our arm to carry out the job. Dismantling and then putting together things requires a good number of tools, and good strength. Even for something as humble as a Splendor.

[Rajeevraj]

If I attempted to restore anything, this is exactly how I'll end up. Nice write up. More than anything, kudos to you to pen down in a public forum a thread on how you messed up. Most people would have tried to keep the whole thing a top secret

[drt_rdr]

A long time ago, I did the same thing to my geared bicycle. I still regret giving away the steel frame.

Great laughs as always.

[surajspai]

Originally Posted by RiderZone

After watching an unhealthy amount of Youtube restoration videos, I thought I’ll give it a go on my 2009 Pulsar 150 DTSi. I vastly underestimated the skills it takes to do automotive repair work, how much patience is required, and how much of a pain it all can be. Hopefully someone can learn from my experience.

I have a old Hero pleasure at home which does odd duty now and then.Its not my primary ride(a Activa 125) and is close to 14 years old. It was acting up too often and talk of selling it off in exchange for a newer Suzuki access or something similar got me thinking-how hard can it be?

Plus, getting my Activa serviced gave me a few insights into the work done, as, being a whiny and annoying customer, the ASC would take me to the shop floor and do the work in front of me to ensure satisfaction.

Heres how my experience of a similar endeavor went-

Mistake 1: Not letting a real mechanic do the job

I think it should be a sincere mechanic. This scooter has been religiously serviced at the same A.S.C since it was purchased and while bills are low,it hasnt really been given TLC.

Upon opening the CVT casing I found it to be totally neglected in spite of complaining of a vibey ride and poor pickup.
The bendix was shot, the rollers turned into.. cubes, the clutch shoes worn to the limit. It gave off a feel of having been neglected badly.
I havent opened up the rest of the engine, but it has a oil leak somewhere which I am assuming will require me to split the casing at some point or the other.

Last time the service center chaps spent a lot of time trying to convince me that it needed a full rebuild, done by them of course.

Then,on draining the gear box oil, I was horrified to find it all foamy and full of metallic particles.
I filled in 120mL of EP 90 gear oil and the difference was simply mind blowing! Honestly.

Mistake 2: Not washing the bike

I did wash the scooter before pulling it apart.
However, there was some carpentry work done at home while the scooter was standing bare with its panels off.
Dust settled on it so badly, it looked like it had just returned from conquering Dakar.

Mistake 3: Stripping it down rather than fixing what’s wrong

I too regret that, because I realized I was spending more money than necessary replacing non wear parts which are just fine

Mistake 5: No plan

Not really, since I have decided to take one section apart at a time, get that back to running condition and move on to the next.
The entire CVT has been overhauled with new/serviced parts and runs like a charm.

In the process of dismantling the bike, I had already destroyed the following items:

Ive cracked the panels and that colour combination is no longer available as replacement. A dowel broke off in the cvt casing due to wrong technique.
No other major faults.

Parts replaced-Almost all of the CVT system, most of the braking hardware including the front and rear brake drums. Also, replaced the engine oil,spark plug and gear oil.
Costs-close to Rs 8000 till now. Time taken for these jobs alone-close to 2 months.
I'm estimating another Rs 25k or more as per what I think may need replacement. More than that? Who knows.

[Raghu M]

Man oh man, this was one heck of a read. While I feel sorry for the outcome of your project, it had me in splits!! Frankly, I have not seen anyone being such a good critic of themselves. Do not feel bad, as the saying goes - at least you tried. I can ride bikes and cars but have zero knowledge of even trying to open something up and DIY, leave along restoring a full bike. Credit to you for attempting it and coming out with valuable lessons. That's the beauty of this forum, everyone teaches you something. You need not invent the wheel all over again, there are people who have toiled and found a way, we just need to follow them. Good luck friend!

[rr_zen]

Originally Posted by RiderZone

After watching an unhealthy amount of Youtube restoration videos, I thought I’ll give it a go on my 2009 Pulsar 150 DTSi. I vastly underestimated the skills it takes to do automotive repair work, how much patience is required, and how much of a pain it all can be. Hopefully someone can learn from my experience.

Truly appreciate your post mate ! Your project may have been a fiasco but I congratulate you for your will to share your experience and the intention behind it that so that others can learn a lesson or two. It takes guts to accept one's mistake and not many do that fearing criticism.

[RiderZone]

Thanks for all the lovely comments!

Originally Posted by srini1785

PS : The best maintenance for any old bike is to simply keep it running.

This, absolutely this. There's simply no better alternative, which is why I sold my Duke 390 for relative peanuts to a good friend, rather than let it rot away.

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

I dont think the bike was in bad enough condition to undergo a restoration, based on the pictures. All it needed was a good, thorough service.

Yes and No, the pictures don't tell the whole picture. It definitely didn't need a strip down, but did need more than just a service, which is all the excuse I needed to rip it apart!:

a. The exhaust was rusting out badly

b. This was the situation of the clutch cable, throttle was worse



c. The wiring loom was just gone. When the bike was new I had for some silly reason installed an alarm system in it, that had already messed with the wiring. Now it was also home to some random insects, which didn't help.

Originally Posted by shobhit.shri

Where is the photo of your family member's reaction to this mess and the final sale?

They were already annoyed me with enough, any attempt to shove a camera in their face would have backfired spectacularly.

Originally Posted by aargee

Yes, I stripped it down even before draining the oil, even before removing the clutch & the first thing to be removed was wheels; then I had to put the wheels back, so you can imagine the frustration of repeating things twice!!

Reading that makes me feel a bit better about my failure!

Originally Posted by WinniedPo

Question for you though: Why does the About section of your blog keep redirecting to a random wiki page every time I click on it?

I thought that would be a funny gag, every time you click on that link it goes to a random article on Wikipedia. What's better than someone trying to look me up and finding himself on a page about helicopters?

The Wikipedia link btw is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

I would have got offers of less than 10k inr (probably much lesser) so thought the pending repairs on the bike might be an enough cost for the new buyer so just asked my friend to give it off to a watchman or a milkman (or sorts) who was looking for a vehicle.

Absolutely agreed, I tried to sell it but got silly offers. They were actually genuine based on the value of the bike, but for me the sentimental value was so much that accepting 10k for it was unacceptable.

[tanayr]

Very relevant timing - I have a 90K run 2008 Pulsar 200 DTS-i and I had also started on disassembly + restoration in June 2020.

However, I only removed the exhaust and then did not remove anything else since.

[How to avoid disaster : become too lazy to even strip the bike completely in the first place ]

I am going to slap the exhaust back on and take it to some nice mechanic. Will complete a lakh kms FOR SURE.

[vredesbyrd]

Thank you for bringing me back to reality. I was planning to replace the throttle body and do an EGR delete on the Superb myself but I'd rather not. I'll let the FNG guys get some sunshine and headaches.

BTW, No Man's Sky?

[TrackDay]

That was a very interesting read. Like someone else said, your bike doesn't seem to be in that too bad a shape. Or maybe the pictures don't show any underlying gremlins.

Another mistake, though not directly related to restoring, could be storage. Before going abroad, Had you known you would be away for a while, could have taken some steps to store it properly. I remember an old thread, about a Honda Unicorn, I think. The owner packed it in his house or somewhere like that with partial disassembly.

I recall a friend who tried to get the front brakes of his bike restored by himself, though his knowledge was limited. In the end he wasted some money, time and ended up giving it to the mechanic to do the job. However there are some folks who have quite some good knowledge and can manage that. I have also seen some D-I-Y projects in this forum that has blown my mind.

Anyway nice to see the positive approach to the whole matter ! Not many folks can do that. Your gain from the experience may help in future endeavors ! The only guy who gained something now is the scrap collector !