Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Member's Rides 2006 America

Well I done goofed and let a lady with no insurance pull out in front of me. Hit her truck going 30mph in a T-Bone style collision. It hurt pretty good and broke my wrist. Had to have surgery and whatnot. Thankfully I had medical insurance at the time. It sucks too because this particular day was the first time I had ridden the bike in a good 3 months because we had to replace two bent exhaust valves. First ten minutes on the bike in months and BAM!

I had bub pipes, and air box removal done, we re-jetted the carbs, hand painted pretty mermaid girl on the tank. This thing was my baby and she was totaled. Or so I thought when I limped away the scene of the wreck. Like a idiot I left it in the impound lot until they auctioned it off three months later for $650. About 6 months later when my wrist was feeling better I started to get that itch to ride again so I got on Craigslist and low and behold there she was. I got some cash together and went ahead and bought it back.

Now the poor girl is sitting on the stand in my garage. The guy I bought it from replaced the front forks and handle bars. The tank is dented pretty good and the right side header was ripped out of the jugs. Forward right side controls are smashed and its gonna need a turn signal. The front wheel was apparently bent damn near in half but hey this thing was not that bad! All things considered its totally repairable.


This is when i first got it back in 2011.


Here I am being all dumb and ******. Me and the girlfrind were riding route 66 in Oklahoma on a nice sunday afternoon.


small town Oklahoma on route 66


A disgruntled employee of mine decided to write her name on my tank with her car keys...


So I had to strip the paint off


Clean it up




paint it




and add a little something extra


At this point i've had the bike for probably 2 years. Wrapped the pipes, put bags on it, threw some pegs, mirrors, grips on there too. bought and installed the rear peg hangers which did not come with the bike for some reason.
Bonus 67 mustang in the back. Also cat



Decided to start the air box removal at about the 4 years mark. This project was actually alot of fun and makes the bike look tons better too.


Lookin good!


This mess of wires never gave me any problems but i remember being worried about it at the time.


heres when my dumb roommate put the intake cam on the exhaust side and bent two exhaust valves. That was quite the fiasco but in the end we ripped down and rebuilt that sucker and it worked just fine until i smashed it into a big stupid truck



Sadly I do not have too many more pictures of it after this point. but after getting the carbs jetted properly this bike was so much fun to ride!
Fast forward a few more years worth of oil changes, brake pads, redoing seals, replacing tyres as my book called them and one bad spot of water getting into the oil from the valve cover bolts and here I am getting ready to rebuild the bike. Any who thats pretty much it.

Lotta fun story and good luck with you gettin aqainted again.

Enjoyed reading your story and transformation of your America. And the cat! Hope you are healing up OK.

Well thanks guys. I feel damn near %100 now but right after it happend i was in a wheelchair for a week then a boot for another month. When I hit the truck the steel tow part of my boot dug into the top of my foot and bruised the ever living crap out of my right foot. I was wearing gloves that stopped right at the base of my hand, you know the really short ones, and the lack of support on the wrist allowed me to hyper-extend my hand. When this happens apparently it is common for the scaffoid, a tiny crescent moon shaped bone in the wrist that is known to have the poorest blood flow of any bone in the body, to break or fracture. Luckily my scaffoid was repairable so they cut my hand open and put a titanium screw in that tiny bone and now i cant do alot of things like pushups or really put any strain on it if the wrist has to be cocked forward or backward.
I had to take three months off work but I had temporary disability insurance as well as health insurance. Let me just say that that temporary disability insurance was a life saver. I was able to make just as much money sitting at home playing video games and reading books and what not than I was working full time.

And, how long did it take for the ex-employee to get out of the hospital?

Keep it and rebuild it. Way back when you were a zygote Lee Majors got really scrambled and toasted, and they rebuilt him even better than before. They spent 6 million on him. That was before the "___________________care" bill was passed.

Good luck and best wishes