Yay! Yet another poll. Can you wield a wrench?

[Easy-X]

Yes, everyone loves a poll on this forum but I am actually curious as to whether "biker people" are generally more competent with or willing to wield a wrench
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[WD Forte]

Where's the "Shove yer stinkin poll up yer arse" option?
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bikers smell of wee

[NJD]

[Easy-X]

[GSTEEL32]

[pepperami]

Lack of monies has forced me to grasp some of the basics of bike spannering.
Can/would I dare split the cases of a modern super- tecnik engine, not a chance!
Change wheels, chain, tyres, bulbs, batteries, cables, indicators, seat, not an issue
Remove a fairing, jeez! Done that, it can be a real ball-ache.
Changed clutch plates, not an issue

Electrics are another world and NO!, not going to even try!.
Been there and paid the price for my fuckwittery .
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[Bhud]

Probably, relatively.
I have been known to accidentally break things when spannering, although that hasn't happened in quite a while. Being able to recognise the best way to predict and approach problems like old, seized bolts is probably the most useful skill. Knowing when and what to replace, another. Being able to completely strip down even a simple engine in minutes and not have to spend weeks looking at diagrams and watching YouTube videos is not within my ambit of ability, but I've seen actual.mechanics do that at great speed and with great confidence. As long as it's a hobby, it's all good fun. I don't think it's a poor man's game, as some people who aren't into bikes might think. I'll post a full itemised list of the expenses incurred on one of my projects, one day. For me, it's about having the option to choose to do a project to begin with, so I have to work within my abilities. There's a wide gulf between the guy who gets a shop to build him a cafe racer and the guy who turbos some rocket ship and builds a custom frame and then posts it in Show and Tell. Most are likely to be somewhere in between.

[recman]

Engine internals is probably the only thing I'm not entirely confident with, that said, I've not had a go really.
Everything else seems fairly straightforward and I should probably have a go at more stuff like maybe rebuilding the shocks but I'm a lazy feck.

[Easy-X]

I've heavily leaned towards doing my own servicing not because I'm short of money but because I can easily fuck things up for free instead of paying someone else to fuck them up!

I've been lucky with bikes so far but the tally of bits broken by ham-fisted mechanics on my old Skoda is depressing.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[chickenstrip]

I managed to successfully (i.e bike was fixed and ran well) strip and rebuild a Kawasaki Z650/4 that had some severe damage to engine internals after being run without oil pressure, at age of about 15, with some repair work being done by the local engineering workshop, and a bit of guidance from the mechanic at the bike dealership I worked Saturdays for. That was my first time getting that involved. Before that, the most involved thing I'd done were PDIs. I have since stripped and rebuilt only top ends: Z1, 350YPVS and CB100N. Edit: And a full engine strip and rebuild on a Kawasaki H2/3 with gearbox problems that turned out to be unrepairable crankcase damage - thrown back together and flogged on.

For me, it comes down to having decent tools and facilities, and not being under pressure of time. I haven't been in that happy situation for a long time, and so haven't tended to do much more than basic maintenance myself. I would also be much more inclined to do it on a project bike of some kind rather than my main ride, with the risk of messing things up always there, leaving me without a bike to ride for who knows how long.

These days I suppose it's easier to find advice (online) with anything you're not sure about, whereas once it was only mates to consult, if you had any that were competent themselves, assuming a workshop manual didn't have the information you needed.

I did basic maintenance on my first car (Ford Orion 1.6), but have always taken my current one (Focus 1.8) in for servicing. Again, more a case of not really being set up at home to do it all myself, tools and stuff being so expensive, and not being much inclined to grovel about under a car on a driveway in the open, being all aches and pains anyway as I am these days.

So yeah, I'm happy to wield the spanners under the right conditions.
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Chickenystripgeezer's Biking Life (Latest update 19/10/18) Belgium, France, Italy, Austria tour 2016 Picos de Europa, Pyrenees and French Alps tour 2017 Scotland Trip 1, now with BONUS FEATURE edit, 5/10/19, on page 2 Scotland Trip 2 Luxembourg, Black Forest, Switzerland, Vosges Trip 2017
THERE'S MILLIONS OF CHICKENSTRIPS OUT THERE!

[xX-Alex-Xx]

Depends on the servicing. Happy to do most of the lighter stuff myself, including electrics, but stuff like valve clearances I pay for. Partly cos I don't have a garage so anything I do is on the driveway when the weather is decent.
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DILLIGAF

[F18]

As everywhere in life, there are some right fuckwittery folk about.
A quick scan elsewhere and especially in fb groups shows this to be true.

It amazes me the proud lack of knowledge and care shown by some bikers; but then again maybe they can rider better'er than me.
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Summer is just around the corner

[Blah blah]

Some of the bodges I've found on the teenager's Miito from previous owners are incredible, including a bolt with lots of tape around it acting as the pivot for the rear brake lever and 2 HiDs bodged into the loom. It has a pi55 poor charging system anyway and these sucked pretty much everything it generated.

My personal favourite though was the rear lights. The Mito has 2 rear brake / tail bulbs and one didn't work and on closer examination one of the twin filament bulbs had been replaced with a single filament, jammed into the bulb holder.

[MarJay]

I do everything up to bottom end rebuilds on four stroke bikes. Sometimes I choose not to and pay someone.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[ThatDippyTwat]

I do everything, if I have a workshop.

I currently don't, so I stop short of starting any internal fuckery past a clutch plate change, hence farming out valve clearances on the VFR.
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'98 VFR800 (touring) - '12 VFR800 Crosrunner (Commuting) - '01 KDX220 (Big Green Antisocial Machine)

[davebike]

I am happy to work on anything I own but :-
I started work for a Dealer in 1976 foreman and Suzuki trained! Still working in the trade so it is easy for me ! having trade accounts is good )
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Dave
NC750Xdct + others at work !
davebike1@gmail.com

[blurredman]

Anything and everything.

But i'm lucky enough to own a garage now- and a nice and big one too, where I can fit my 18ft car + 3 bikes in. It has a pit too, which can be handy for underside car work, like taking out in-line transmissions..

There's something I loathe about doing work on the car or bike out where everybody can see me doing it- even something simple like checking the oil level.


I've yet to take a car engine apart, but have done many bikes.


For example, I change car tyres myself with irons. Then I take it around the corner to get balanced. Not for the expense, but for the satisfaction of being able to do these things myself, without machines, and without paying.

Front wheel bearings on a car (re-using the hubs), did that the other week. The garage wanted £20 to press off the old and on the new (£12.50) bearings.. No way. In that instance, it was the price. So instead I spent a few hours giving my wrist shocks with the hammer.

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CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S.
Current: 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 (bored to 295cc) - 38k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 49k, 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 9k, 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 17k.

[arry]

I'm a relatively competent home mechanic but I don't work on my own bikes / cars any more - well, not unless I have to.

Two reasons:
My spine has seen better days so I don't want to waste the life it has left in it by doing things I can pay others to do and;
You can have money, or you can have time, but rarely both. I have money, but little time. I'm happier swapping money for someone else's time, and getting to ride my bikes, than I am keeping the money and having to spend time fixing them, meaning no time to ride them.

[to v or not to v]

thanks to youtube, plenty of jobs are now within my capabilities.

[chickenstrip]

[stinkwheel]

I don't do machining or structural welding. Can pretty much cope with most other things though.

All borne, as mentioned above, from necessity as a skint teenager. Want to get to work in the morning? Well you're going to have to stay up all night fixing that clutch then.

Hell, I've even re-wound a charging relay with wire robbed from an old TV because I needed the bike in the morning.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Robby]

A quick browse through the workshop forum will show you that competent and willing are two different things.

[wr6133]

Bikes almost everything DIY, I have a garage now so it's easier but I used to happily pull stuff apart roadside or wheel the bike indoors if weather was crap. Main stuff I won't do is tubeless tyres (take loose wheels to a fitter) and any welding (don't own a welder and it looks like too much of a rabbit hole to go down). Started out for poverty reasons, when you are running £300 bikes and choosing brake pads based on costing less than a tenner, paying people is a luxury. As my bikes got faster and money less tight it's morphed more in to a trust issue. I do dumb shit on my GSXR, if the front wheel falls off and plants me in a tree I want to know that was purely my fault not some negligent apprentice. Amusingly this means I've hit the issue Arry mentions about money and time. I now have bike jobs backing up. That said some stuff I genuinely enjoy, the Enfields are easy and satisfying to work on, other stuff not so much as you often have to waste an hour+ removing plastics, etc to even get at the job.

Car has more electrical shit than an AEGIS cruiser, I take that to the house of a trusted HGV mechanic I've worked with, he knows what he is doing, has the right crap to plugin and charges me almost nothing.

I think in general "Bike People", will be more mechanically inclined than "Car People". If you buy your 1st car at 17 you pretty much just drive it and pay for an annual service. If you buy your first bike at 17 straight away you need a toolkit just for simple stuff like chain tension.

[c_dug]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

"wield" a "wrench"


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"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125