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My dad always had a garage full of tools and a car to tinker with. I used to spend endless hours out in the garage with him as a kid restoring a 1957 Austin Healey.
When I got my first bike my dad told me not to let any of my friends borrow it. Well, I did, and it got backed over by a friend's dad. I was only in Kindergarten or First grade. Dad said "tough luck, I told you not to let anyone borrow your bike." So, from that point on I scavenged parts from ditches, dumpsters, etc and built a couple bikes from parts. By the middle of elementary school, my house was the place to come to if you had bent your rim, had a flat tire, broke a derailleur, etc. In middle school I got into Tamiya RC cars built from kits. I started making chasses for them out of aluminum and changing shock oils, mounting points, etc. Put my sister's Barbie Corvette body on my RC car. Got the mod bug on the RC cars, had a Kyosho Optima (if anyone remembers old school RC cars), converted it from belt 4-wheel drive to chain, upgraded differentials, upgraded shocks, replaced all bushings with ball bearings, got a Trinity racing motor and matched cell battery packs. Had about a million gears for changing drive ratios. Got an SCR electronic speed controller when they were still cutting edge(most cars used a 3-step resistor based speed control). Eventually a friend rode over on a 50cc 2-stroke street bike (I grew up in England) and I took it for a spin. I was hooked. I ended up trading my RC car and equipment for a ratted out 50cc Yamaha bike. Needed a ton of work, no lights, shot bushings, needed new brake pads, tires, etc. Learned how to rebuild a car on that bike, as well as how to pull a head, decarbonize a 2-stroke, etc. Also learned about wiring, as the only thing that worked on the bike was ignition. Brought it into my electronics class in HS and used it as my project, lol. Got banned from bringing it to school because I was riding it at lunch on school grounds trying to jump hills, etc. It had an aftermarket expansion chamber, aftermarket reeds, drop bars, etc. Regular motorcycle with clutch, 5 speed box, tach, speedo, turn signals, etc, just 50cc. Rode the bike without any license, ins. etc and got pulled over and got a ton of tickets. The cops only gave me about 1/3 the tickets they could have, but I ended up with 6 points on my learner's permit when I eventually got it (12 you loose your license, lol). I sold the bike to my best friend to pay the fines :-) Bought another 50cc bike a few months later. This one was bone stock and pig-slow. 50cc bikes are restricted to 30mph in the UK, you can only ride a 50cc bike at 16, you can't even get a learner's permit for a car until 17, so everyone rode 50cc bikes. Anyway, it did 28mph flat out. I put a larger cutout racing intake disk on it (rotary valve 2-stroke, not reed valve), smaller aluminum rear sprocket, changed the carb jetting and built a custom 2-stroke expansion chamber using formulas in a 2-stroke tuning book given to my by my auto shop II teacher. Bike would now pull 53 mph with a passenger. Doesn't sound that fast to you, but when 95%+ of the other 50's could only hit 40 mph on a good day, it was lightening fast, lol. My best friend and I used to go and look for races 2-up on it. The other little 50's would have their riders flat out on the tank it top gear and we would be sitting up right, with 2 people in 3rd gear pacing them. Then I'd shift into 4th and leave them standing (well, as standing as a 10-15 mph speed difference is, lol) Next I stepped up to a 125cc 2-stroke bike. It was a YZ125 with lights basically. 6-speed, liquid cooled, Powervalve, full aftermarket exhaust, etc. I ended up blowing the motor at about 11,500 miles. Just came off the "interstate" running flat-out at about 90+ mph and closed the throttle coming into town. At about 70 mph the piston caught the exhaust port on the way up. **BOOM** instant rear wheel lock up. Grabbed clutch and pushed the bike 4-5 miles home. Bore was scratched, piston in pieces. Pulled motor and found that parts of the piston crown had gotten between the flywheels and the cases and cracked both cases halves and twisted the crank. Bust out the torch, brass mallet and epoxy. Get engine cases back to near normal shape and epoxy them. Use file to smooth out the expose so flywheel clears and cases will mate. Make up balance jig in vice and use brass mallet to tap crank back into true. Took jug to get rebored that afternoon and picked up new piston. Picked up jug next day and had motor back in and running 24 hours after it blew up. By the next day had motor run in and ready to thrash again :-) Also rebuilt my best friend's 2-sroke 125 that holed a piston, and my other friend's 125 and 50 also. So, there you have it, my progression from a normal kid into a gear-head :-)
Mike ------------------------------------------------------
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11:33:47 09/24/04
