All these horror story’s are making me giddy. I gave up doing work on my bikes years ago. Optimum solution for me is the repair shop or main dealers. No embarrassing failures or need to worry about unforeseen damage or expense. For me servicing is part of the cost of ownership of my bikes
If I allowed a dealer to carry out my servicing I would have to strip it down afterwards to make sure it was done properly
I know my limitations…..I could talk you through building a house but ask me to explain how to do a simple task on a bike and I just glaze over.. best leave it to the experts in my book as well.
There was also the time when I kept blowing the 30 amp main fuse on my 73 yam TD3 race bike, I'd used up all my spares at a race meet and already scrounged a few off a crew next to me, it was the last race of the day, digging around in my toolkit I found a spent .22 rim fire rifle case which I forced into the fuse holder as it was only a short race, I thought I'd get away with it. After 3 laps all was good, bike was flying...until I felt some heat around the ballbag area, my race bike had a small suede seat pad with a relief hole right below my aforementioned nut sack, where the 2 stroke oil filler cap sat, raising myself up on my toes to reduce the discomfort I notice flame coming up from below, the wiring loom was aflame and my "chestnuts were roasting by an open fire". I pulled into the pit area and hopped off the bike...screaming like a 6 year old choir boy, having no stand I just held on to the left clip-on until a marshal came to my aid with a fire extinguisher...I learned 2 lessons that day, I'm no auto electrician and a brass rifle cartridge can take more than 30 amps.
This may or may not be useful, if a small nut, washer, fastner or such like (even plastic) end up in a difficult to reach place, use a length of small diameter flexible clear pipe, attach it to a smaller tool from your hoover (use gaffer tape or similar), turn on the hoover and the said fastner gets attached to the clear pipe, the beauty is it can flex into all sorts of small crevices. Before I start any job I use my Karcher industrial wet/dry hoover to go over the area I am working on, and the section of floor is then clear to spot anything that may go astray.
My Uncle Tony ( a JCB plant engineer) had an alternative "fix" for a dropped nut etcetera. Fitting a towbar to a Cavalier estate, my Brother In Law managed to drop TWO bolts into the cavity between the two floor skins of the boot. I rang my Uncle to see if there was any way of retrieving them his suggestion was.... Drop a big blob of grease down one of the the holes into the cavity, the bolts would eventually migrate to it and stick ... no rattles
My wife has OCD. I’ll quietly mention the garage hasn’t been hoovered recently and leave the ‘worm’ to work its way into her mind. 5 mins is all it will take before the whole place is vacuumed, tools all lined up correctly (and not by colour as my OCD neighbour did - seriously the complete teapot really did that), all bolts, screw and nails in their right boxes. No idea why I didn’t think of this before. Thank you for your post it has really helped.
Believe it or not, my wife paints the garage floor. She'll sweep it, mop it, let it dry and then paint it using Stone Paint. It needs doing again thinking about it. Can't see that happening until spring though, she doesn't like the cold.
