Wanted: bike maintance skills!

I haven't got any, I can't download it, and trying learn seems to breaking my SV

I've managed to fark up fitting heated grips, - any impossibly tight clutch grip, tho I'm happy with the electrics.
I've throw brake fluid over several panels - they weren't even on the bike!
It took hours to get my rene's apart for repacking, and I don't even want to try and repack them.
My scottoiler need needs a new injector line and needle (it's fallen off somewhere!)
My OEM hugger has cracked on the RHS bracket
And my resprayed panels aren't a deep enough blue

Tho today I've sucessfully:
Changed the sidelight, and number plate bulb... er that's it.

I seem to be okay with cosmetic issues: New undertray, clear lense, bulbs, double bubble etc - but anything that's a working part, God help me

</end moan>

join the club... i'm off next week and was going to tackle a few things... but i'll probably not risk it

[TSM]

Me not helping, many peeps on here think i am bad with mechanics, though my bike ran without any probs other than what any other sv would have.

I have been a mechanic twenty years (inc apprenticeship).Trust me,if you had the training you could not be bothered. Hope that makes you feel better. There are some courses available if you're a real masochist!

[northwind]

Originally Posted by kinesin

I've throw brake fluid over several panels - they weren't even on the bike!

Sounds familiar... I'm not telling the story of the brake-fluid pressure bleeder again, but trust me, you've never done anything as ridiculous as that My golden rule of brake fluid isn't to avoid spilling or dropping it, it's to have a hose handy when I inevitably do...

I reckon that one of the best ways to learn is simply doing it. The absolute first thing I ever did while "maintaining" a bike was turn an exhaust header bolt on the Yam the wrong way and snap it. It took a lot of snapping too... I was changing a rusted-through downpipe myself to try and save a few quid, and ended up having to spend £50 to have the bolt spark-abraded out. Now I can get bolts out without breaking them, ooh, 9 times out of ten.

Originally Posted by kinesin

I've throw brake fluid over several panels - they weren't even on the bike!

Whenever I'm slopping brake fluid about I always mask any nerby paintwork off with bits of old carrier bags, just in case.

I'm not a bad mechanic, but I can be a bit of a clumbsy git sometimes

Someone once said experience is something you get right after you need it.

So, you have to learn how not to shear off bolts right after you do it for the first time (hopefully!)

Im useless at that sort of stuff, but its good fun to give it a go. If it all goes wrong well, worse case senario it'll just have to go to the dealers afterall!

Dan

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by WHITTY

I have been a mechanic twenty years (inc apprenticeship).Trust me,if you had the training you could not be bothered. Hope that makes you feel better. There are some courses available if you're a real masochist!

I think the art must be to get trained, use that knowledge for a couple of years, then do something totally different, having lernt on 4 tonners & rovers, bike are small and easy to get at.

only doing it for fun also helps

Cheers Mark.

[Viney]

Northy, i had one of those pressure thingys and managed to spray fluid all over my XR2 once! It went straight in the bin!

Steve, if you where closer than id give you a hand, but you aint and i cant!
Im servicing Shins bike tomorrow

[timwilky]

My apprenticeship was cut short, by a Mech Eng Degree. However my shop floor secondments and 6 months in the apprentice training school left me with enough knowledge to know I don't like getting my hands dirty. However as there is very little I cannot do mechanically I just need to be encouraged to do it.


Cars/Trucks are not a problem for me. I started helping my dad do body swaps from about the age of 8yrs old. By the age of 16 I was working as a mechanic for 2 racing teams on Chevron Formula Atlantic, Formula 5000 and B31s.

My favorite secondment whilst training was a small unit call teardown. That is literally what we did. Take a competitors vehicle, and tear it down to each individual component. Then the engineering bit. What is it made of?, how does it work?, why did they do it that way?, how does it go together?. Putting it back together was the best part. Now if I told you that we had done this with hired vehicles

Because the family business was consulting automotive engineering I had plenty of workshop experience. I and my brothers had saturday and holiday jobs in local body shops etc. I was doing full resprays and new body panels for the guys at college to subsidise my income etc.

Strange then when I still do all the work on my kids cars, that I had a little trepidation when it came to working on my bike. But once overcome and confidence gained I no longer have any issues as to my abilities. Now if only I had access to the resources I had as a kid.