broken down on m6

Decided to head west for a few days on my wing, wife was working and we are off to spain on saturday for a week so ideal chance

Crossed over the borders from berwick upon tweed all good nice easy run 60 mph
joined m6 at carisle 15 miles down m6 on outside lane overtaking two lorries 85 mph
sudden loss of power very loud squealing noise and smoke appearing from the engine
ffs, had to get very quickly into the inside lane then onto the hard shoulder.

luckily im a member of green flag gets on phone to ask for help, woman asks where i am , i tell her then she wants a feckin post code
I had to laff i told her no one will deliver post here hen, tried to explain where i was .

Green flag turned up 45 mins later took off the engine cover to discover the Bolt holding the the front of the belt had came way loose and had taken away most of the aluminuem casing.

I had my belt replaced last year and done very few miles these past months
but the mechanic had not secured the bolt with locktite or other means

So guys says yer fooked he calls a lorry to take me an bike home a 2 hr run

we got in the cab and green flag asked to driver to pick up a car at ullswater which is in the lakes the other direction ffs so we spent 3 hrs trying to pick a car up on a one track road with a big breakdown truck ( i did get a tour of the lakes).

7 hours later i get bike an me home Looking to trade in my baby if it gets fixed

goof

Tough luck goofy, it's maybe better you broke down on the M6 between Carlisle and Penrith rather than it happening on the long steep downhill section of Shap Fell heading towards Kendal. You might have struggled to get a phone signal to call out Green Flag.

Glad you're OK.

Aye yer right Meldrew
waiting to find out the cost of this
was thinking of trading in anyway Burgman looks nice pity Honda wont update the wing

That's a bugger bud, the bolt doesn't need loctite, but the threads & underhead flat surface should have been oiled prior to tightening to the correct torgue (76lbf-ft) I wonder if this is another case of tightening with the "windy gun/electric knocker" that so many "mechanics" seem to favour these days.

About 2yrs ago, riding in Shropshire in the countryside on a lovely day I heard a loud screaming noise, as I was passing a tractor in a field I thought it was coming from the tractor. A few yards further on I realised it was coming from below where I was sat. On pulling over i could see no obvious problem. About a mile further on no drive. I did not have breakdown cover. I had to join the AA and pay for the recovery Took about 6hrs to get home. Cost £155. Taking things apart I found the nut on the drive face had come undone. The drive pulley had come off and cut through the metal outer casing and the front plastic cover.I did the repair. Now despite what the workshop manual says I put thread locker on all nuts.I know I tightened all nuts previously to correct torque but I will no trust them again

Back in my biking days I had a new BMW R80 GS, and as it was under warranty I used to have to make a rather tedious 150 mile ride to the dealership up in Scotland for servicing. Then I used to have to hang around all day in this Scottish seaside town before another tedious three hour early evening ride back home to Cumbria.

One time after servicing I was about 20-30 miles into the ride home at 60 mph when something stuck my boot. Thinking it was just a stone kicked up by the tyres I carried on back home and put the GS away in the garage. A couple of days later I got the bike out and was quite horrified to find the object that had hit my foot was either the front wheel axle/spindle bolt or domed spacer flying off.

Both were missing and it was the front forks pinch bolts that were gripping the axle and holding the wheel on. I hadn't felt any steering problems and the wheel was securely fixed but it could have been rather nasty if they'd been loose too.

I rang up the dealership and they were very apologetic at what at happened. As I was going on one of their BMW dealers rideouts to York a couple of days later I met up with the group at the lunch stop in Cumbria and was given replacements for the missing bits which I fitted and torqued up myself.

Gonna cost me 200 quid to fix, the plate the bolt goes through is knackered £144 + labour
the mechanic will be putting lockite on it

Actually cost me £130 good as new
but i have gone and sold it

anyone any opinion on the new Burgman Meldrew ?

gooffy wrote:

anyone any opinion on the new Burgman Meldrew ?

Hi gooffy, my experiences with Burgmans were with the previous models, I had a 400 K6 from 2005-8 and 650 Executive K8 from 2008-10.

If you want opinions on the current 400 or 650 models you should read some Burgman topics on or better still join the Maxi Muppets forum.

If you want to read a load of nonsense about getting the 'Burgman Grin', there are other forums that the nice Mr Google can direct you to.