Previous owner stupidity?

[tantrumpipeline]

What stupid things have you come across from previous owners on used purchases? My 07 M8 had a tether installed without using the plug and play plugs supplied with the kit thumb warmer also hard wired in all without losing the original plugs, my buddies 07 M5 has all the heat shields pulled for whatever reason, his 09 M6 has the reverse alarm unhooked and is tossing codes and a real treat to play roulette when it decides to start in reverse and get his 12yr old buried, an 09 xp in the group had the factory pipe wrapped in fiberglass header wrap for who knows what reason.... I'm sure there's tons more and worse and although I had a great ride today I had time to think about a few things on the drive home

 

[summitstef]

This is awhile back, but it was on an old everest, my first sled I bought when I was 15. I couldn't figure out why it was running like crap. My uncle and I tore down the engine to find out that the Mag side had been punched out to 20 thou over and the PTO side was std. I learned a lot of "what not to do" lessons with that sled..

 

[CUSO]

WOW that thing must have jumped all over.

Meatbag once bought an old Phazer, the guy said it wouldn't start, but it had some compression.

He took it home, the guy JB welded the piston shut and filled the cylinder with grease to up the compression..LOL

 

[maxwell]

went to look at a rzr and the machine looked like it had more miles on it than the tach said. sure enough he had the tach unplugged and didnt bother to hook it back up for the test run

 

[Clode]

Hyvo chain on non-hyvo srockets.....

 

[JMCX]

Back in the day my buddy picked up a mint Alouette. Fresh top end the guy said. It was true but the now oversized pistons were running on a bare aluminum bore. The nicasil had been machined out. It lasted one ride I think.

 

[Culvert]

Picked up a used Nytro turbo couple years back. Sled ran good or so I thought at low elevation.
Up in the Mtns it was a turd. Tore into things & found the blow off valve was in backwards & had blown the intercooler apart. So low boost no issues but when getting on her she would open up & dump the air out the craked cooler.
Also found they installed the spindels on the wrong side, whichmade it turn like crap!

 

[meatbag]

Ha! I had 5 Phazers Cuso! I bought the 91 Phaser 2 off a friend who couldn't get it going. We both knew something was up with it internally. The previous guy had seized it so bad he had taken a hammer to the piston, putting a hole through it. He then filed it-with a rough file to fit again, JB Welded the hole in the top and smeared a very nice high quality gooey grease all around so the engine would pull over. very high Kwality job indeed.
My friend bought it cheap and took it apart. The piston was replaced an additional 2 times after it was repaired by him because of overheating and partial seizing again and again. I bought it off my friend because he had given up on it thinking it was the oil pump and had lost interest in working on it. I took it home and immediately after going through the machine I noticed that the lower plastic fan cowl, which you can't see was missing, letting all the cooling air get diverted to the belly pan and not over the PTO cylinder. I replaced the $15.00 part and I put about 8000 km on that motor until the connecting rod let go one day in a field, far far from home.
I could actually see the crank spin around because the rod had taken out most of the case around it. I pulled the starter and...it started! I drove it home and used it to get my mail for a couple of weeks! I did spray a bit of grease in the crank area to keep the bearing going. I replaced that motor after that and sold it. There, thats the Phaser story. It was actually a great, tough little sled.
That piston, by the way is still at Alberta Cycle, behind the counter, watched over like a hawk by Vince(He acquired it from my friend and the bugger won't let me have it! I've known Vince the parts manager forever, haha).

 

[KatMan]

All seem like pretty light fixes to me, although I would opt for shoe goo vs jb on the phaser piston to shed some weight

 

[marcel.]

I bought my m1000 and didn't realize that it had the wrong secondary clutch in it. It had two different size sheaves. I later found out he needed my clutch for a project sled he was building.