Most frustrating thing you've done to your bike so far?

[wessie]

My nemesis was an allen bolt made of an alloy weaker than the grip of blue Loctite. This was one of the four bolts holding on the footrest hangers which needed to be removed to add a spacer for the Givi sidecase rack.
 
I tried a left hand drill bit and hammering in a torx bit to no avail. I drilled the hole a bit deeper and then managed to get a torx bit to grip. I guess the heat from the friction helped break the Loctite seal. Reassembly was simple as Givi supplied a longer bolt to accommodate the spacer.

[jimf]

Most frustrating thing?
 
I rode the bike home from the dealer after waiting two weeks for the recall part to come in and get installed (I was going insane; you can read about it elsewhere on this board if you want :-). During that time frame I had accumulated a substantial number of upgrades; far too many to put on the bike right away, but I decided that the first thing I would do was spend a few minutes swapping in the fancy folding clutch and brake levers, just a little bit of bling on the new bike. Easy peasy, right?
 
The handguards make that swap a bit annoying, but within maybe 15 minutes the clutch lever was on. (Most of the time was spent trying to work out the best compromise between the angle I wanted the lever to sit at and what would clear the control block; the CRG folding levers don't have a lot of extra space there.) Next up, front brake!
 
I loosened up all the handguard stuff and pulled the old brake lever off and replaced it with the new one and I was trying to work the pivot bolt back in. It had become a bit wedged trying to get it around the not-quite-loose-enough handguard brackets, so I went to pull it out so I could loosen everything up a bit more and try again.
 
I give it a little tug. Poing! It springs out, escapes my grip, flies up in the air ... and clatters down inside of the plastics at the front of the bike. Dammit.
 
Looked around on the ground. No bolt. Grabbed a flashlight and looked around the radiator area. No bolt. Grabbed the magnetic probe and poked around some more, from top and bottom. No bolt.
 
OK, enough of this.
 
I removed the fascia plastic from the top, giving a lot better view into the top of the tank and the radiator area. No bolt.
 
I removed the side plastics on the right. No bolt.
 
I removed the side plastics on the left. No bolt.
 
I shook the bike around to see if I could dislodge the bolt from wherever it went. No bolt.
 
In all, I spent more than two hours trying to figure out where that bolt could possibly have gone. Never found it. I am convinced there is a hole in the time/space continuum either in the middle of my driveway or deep inside the FJ. Maybe it leads to the same place where socks go when you wash them. Or spare fuses that you're sure you had in the tank bag.
 
So now I've got a brand new bike that I had to wait two weeks to pick up because of the recall and I've ridden for all of 30 miles and now I don't have a freaking front brake and how could I have screwed up something that simple? God only knows how long it will take to get a replacement bolt. I gave up and bolted all the plastics back on (very easy to do, nice job Yamaha! Suzuki, you should talk to Yamaha).
 
Now my wife is complaining because I told her I was only going to be working on the bike for a few minutes and it's been hours and am I going to come back inside or what?
 
Last ditch attempt: I went through my old bolt supply and found a longish 5mm bolt that happened to thread in there perfectly. The barrel isn't smooth around the area where the lever pivots, as it should be, but I figured that with a good dollop of grease it wouldn't wear anything enough over the course of a few days or even a couple of weeks (or maybe ever) while I waited for the replacement bolt to arrive.
 
So that's my story of frustration. Broke my new bike within a half hour of driving it home.
 
The replacement bolt arrived within a week or two ($8 shipped, and I was glad to pay it) and went in neat as you please. I made sure the ersatz pivot bolt went back in the old bolts tray. You know, just in case.