I ride my '01 FXD to work when I can and the other day was really nice so I decided to take the long way home. On down the road, I roll up to a traffic signal and notice a knocking/rattling noise coming from the right side of the engine. I was hoping it was the old beater car in the right lane but heard it again at the next signal. I am looking for a good place to pull into when the engine starts loosing power and missing/popping. Ok, I am new to Harley's and I am thinking, "oh ****, WTF is this all about!"

With being totally distracted by the noise, I had completely forgot that I needed to gas up and realized that the main gas is empty and so I switch to the reserve as I am heading toward a gas station. I pull in and park to check things out and noticed that the exhaust pipe mounting bolt is loose and it is the pipes that are rattling. I gas up and make it home without losing the bolt.

I tighten the bolt and spent a couple of hours checking all the others and find several that are somewhat loose. I put an emergency tool kit together and learned a lesson on common sense preventative maintenance and paying attention to my ride...before I get stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 

I never used to carry tools thinking what for the bike is new.. but a couple of years ago I was out for an afternoon ride and stopped for gas went to restart and just a click from the starter, called my wife to bring me some tools, turned out it was a loose battery cable screw driver and a wrench and I was on my way.. On long trips I'll pack a tire repair kit and a mini compressor to connect to the battery tender pigtail, last year riding out to RI with friends I lost the rear tire, was able to plug the tire and ride it home, otherwise I would have been waiting for hours till one of my friends came with a trailer...

 

Ding! Portable compressor and tire plug kit...hadn't thought of that.

 

My tires are tubed so maybe a can of foam. Are yours tubed?

 

No, they are OEM Dunlop 401 tubeless...I am waiting for a new rear tire (same tire) and have been thinking about tubes. Are there any balancing issues using tubes with tubeless tires?

 

Include some zip ties in your tool kit.

 

I need to put a kit togther too...

 

sparkplug socket, ratchet, zip ties, electrical tape, duct tape, JB Kwik weld, lil tube of blue loctite, spare plugs an plug gapper tool, small adjustable wrench small pair of vice grips, one fo those screwdrivers that takes bits, torx bits, allen bits, and a an couple phillips head bits. and a couple 1156 and 1157 bulbs. is usually what i carry with me every where, on a logn trip i add a few other odd's and ends. ima poor **** so if i break down i cant fix it on the side of the road im screwed and pushing till i fidn someoen with some mroe tools i can use so i generally liek to carry soem basics to

 

How do you keep your tools from rusting?

 

Yeah I need to put one together too! I was just doing a general check on my bike today in the garage and noticed that I lost an exhaust flange nut. Probably because I lost one of the originals when I was changing out my cables and just threw on one that happen to fit that I had laying around. Probably would be a good idea to add some blue locktite also. I am thinking NSCoyote has a pretty good list of stuff that I should carry.