What can I do to be more mechanically minded and able?

Originally Posted by timwilky

Easy, grow up.

Kids of today have been brought up in a world where authority has said no, don't touch, it will hurt, etc.

simples get on with it.

Do go running to forums asking how. You will usually learn


Just do it, if you get it right great, ask for advice about when it goes wrong. you wil never learn people showing you. Do it for yourself. learn from your mistakes.

Fixed LOL! Plenty on here are helpful and know what they're on about. Experience DOES trump knowledge, but a bit of learning WHY things work as well as HOW helps me, and might well help you. Reconcile yourself to the fact it might take a while to do things, and you might break things as well. An old hack, if you can spare the dough, would be good, but if you have to go to a mechanic anyway, at least you've learned a bit as well as losing money.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

You learn by making mistakes. Man who never did owt wrong never did owt.

i like this. this rule also makes me a genius and master of the universe.

[squirrel_hunter]

I learned from buying a Haynes manual, and a cheap set of tools.

For me it was necessity. I have a habit of dismounting a bike at speed and quickly found myself running out of money. So I invested in some basic equipment and then found I enjoyed it.

I'm now confident in what I do but am no where near an expert. Not even close. So thats where the org comes in. I do most things myself or with help of others who know about as much as me. But as we work on our bikes we increase our understanding and our skill set.

Keep asking questions but keep on trying yourself, thats what I do.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

If you not bleeding, you forgot something

And cursing...

Don't know if this would work the same with mechanical stuff as it does for me when learning to ride but maybe try running stuff like the arrangement of things and the order of parts in your head before/after trying it for yourself. Maybe even make a diagram of bits in the engine (after taking one apart) and annotating it with where stuff goes and what it does? Don't know how "from scratch" you need to go though, you might already know the obvious stuff?

Today I did my first oil change on my car without using the manual for any reference at all.. Today I made my first mistake - I left the god damn sump nut off as I started filling the oil and then wondered why my foot was getting soaked. Experience trumps knowledge - I wont make the same mistake twice. Im not saying dont use a manual, but try and only use it if you get stuck.. Try and work out what you need to take off to get to a part, it will help you in the long run.

Re tools - buy the best you can afford. A cheapy set will do for starters, but will eventually break / make your life a lot harder than decent tools. Dont skimp on sockets and socket sets especially, they will be your main go-to guys a lot of the time. Also, impact drivers are a great investment for less than a tenner - the oversized screw bits really help, plus the driver is far easier to grip than a normal screwdriver.

IMO one of the best ways to learn is to buy something thats konked out, but is basicly a whole bike, another one thats got a decent engine but been down the road, strip the konked engine for practice / giggles, and then from the two bikes make a whole one Sell off the bits you dont need for spares, and then you either sell the whole bike to make a bit of profit or have it as a cheap second hack. Thats what im currently trying to do anyhow.

[_Stretchie_]

Originally Posted by husky03

can see the younger ones saying "What's meccano?"

It's a song isn't it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN62PAKoBfE

Originally Posted by rictus01

you start with a father who's a "rocker" spend your formative years moving engine parts out the way to reach the bread, handing tool to dad, then you get a box of bits and dad helps you turn it into an engine that works, mess around with bikes and cars for the next 10 years, have HM's finest teach you work practices, followed by 30 odd years of bike maintenance, all pretty easy really.......

That's what I did! Well, except 30 years of bike maintenence - I'm not that old yet... Except dad wasn't an out and out rocker, but he does think the gear shift should be on the right!

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

You learn by making mistakes. Man who never did owt wrong never did owt.

Yep - everyone makes mistakes. Like this weekend - who knew that it would be a bad idea to clean scruitineering stickers off my screen with brake cleaner....

[yorkie_chris]

Just put new ones somewhere else, then when you take bike out on road to a meet you look a hero

[Spanner Man]

Good afternoon all.


This is one of the reasons that we do while you wait servicing, customers learn a lot just by watching. They also get to see the job done right, & If nothing else, they learn to spot when something's going wrong.

On occasion people look pretty worried when we really get stuck in, such as when cams start being removed for shimming purposes. We can see a 'I hope you can put it back together' look on their faces.

One thing that I'm often asked, is whether one needs such a vast array of tools. The answer is no. The DIY'er can make do with a pretty basic kit, of decent quality sockets, spanners, Allen keys, & pliers etc.

The majority of tools that I have are simply for saving time. I think I have 5 or 6 of the more common sizes of spanner such as 8 10 12 14 17 & 19mm. They all have various attributes that allow access in difficult areas, I don't need to have them to do the job, but they can speed things up considerably.

My advice to anyone who knows nothing, & who wishes to learn the basics is to watch an experienced professional, doing the job. Rather than diving in yourself. That could be costly!
If you have some mechanical ability, then there's nothing wrong with getting a manual & having a go yourself. Just don't exceed your capapbilities.


Cheers.

Originally Posted by ShadFX

Today I did my first oil change on my car without using the manual for any reference at all.. Today I made my first mistake - I left the god damn sump nut off as I started filling the oil and then wondered why my foot was getting soaked. Experience trumps knowledge - I wont make the same mistake twice. Im not saying dont use a manual, but try and only use it if you get stuck.. Try and work out what you need to take off to get to a part, it will help you in the long run.

I'd disagree with this, if you'd been following the step by step procedure in the manual, it would have said "refit the sump bolt".

There are numerous screws required and a specific procedure to remove for instance a faulty pointy dashboard clock unit. Inner fairing panel comes out first, then the mirrors come off, then unplug all the electrical cables to the forward lighting, then the nose cone comes off complete with headlight (which may be a surprise so you drop it cos you weren't expecting it to have any weight), only then can you get to the back of the speedo to unplug it and unscrew it from the front subframe. Assume it's just going to unscrew and come out somehow, and you'll spend hours undoing unnecessary screws and removing unnecessary parts such as the screen trying to get into it, before you eventually get it out after a lot of swearing and bending back (and possibly breaking) of plastics to try and figure out where they are still attached.

Read the manual and it'll tell you exactly what the procedure is, where the screws are and which ones to remove in which order, and you can have it out in 10 minutes and you'll still have learned the correct procedure for doing it the next time.