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Shed Crash (by Guy 'Guido' Allen, July 2022) ![]() Shed
dominoes – how a minor cock-up led to a big repair
bill...but we all came up smiling in the end
Here's what happened: I
parked the 1975 Gold Wing a little clumsily. Next
morning, eldest daughter Ms M jnr wandered into my
office at the back of the house and said (looking for
the most gentle possible language), "Your bikes don't
look right, maybe something has gone wrong." What she
might also have said was, "Brace yourself, it's a
classic cock-up." The issue? The Wing had
fallen over. And the end result was so strange, it took
a moment to understand when Muggins wandered out to
survey the problem. In fact, the Gold Wing was on
its side, so too was the Honda Blackbird, the Daytona
1200 and the Suzuki Hayabusa. It was a sight to behold.
Just for a moment, I wondered if we were both imagining
things. Four large motorcycles having a little rest.
Maybe it was a bad dream and we'd all wake up and laugh
about it. Err, no.
Dammit. Thinking back to the
night before, I recalled parking the Gold Wing,
wondering if it felt stable enough. Nah, she'll be
right. Wrong!
Suitably caffeined, we had to
face reality, march back out into the yard, survey the
appalling vista and come up with some sort of plan. One
by one, muggins levered the bikes to vertical (now there
is a solid morning of exercise) and shuffled them far
enough away from each other to survey the damage. At
first glance, it looked pretty good.
![]() The Blackbird was
theoretically the easiest to source bits for, as it's
recent enough and sold in sufficient numbers for
aftermarket suppliers to take an interest. Full bodywork
kits are readily available for under $1000 delivered to
Australia. More than likely made in China, there was
going to be a question mark over the quality, but it was
the quickest and easiest solution. So hit the order
button.
A giant box soon turned up,
which included a complete bodywork kit. As anyone who
has had paint repaired will know, though I had ordered
black there are several different shades of same, so the
outfit was unpacked with a little trepidation. I'd
prefer to replace just the cockpit piece, but, if it was
a bad match, then replacing the entire bodywork was an
option.
![]()
Then we came to the Triumph.
Forget getting aftermarket kits – none available and
this was a matter of tracking down used fairing parts
and praying they were okay. In this case we bought
second-hand pieces. The Daytona 900 panels (bodywork is
identical to the 1200) we bought out of Europe were a
perfect paint match – so kudos to Hinckley for being
consistent with its paint.
And now I'm much more careful
about how everything is parked before I tuck them in for
the night... ------------------------------------------------- Produced by AllMoto abn 61 400 694 722 |
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