(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

I successfully took apart several sections of my bike and put them back together again yesterday. While that was reassuring, I didn't actually achieve the intended goal. I have a slightly better understanding now of why a spark plug wrench is the bizarre shape it is, but I still wasn't able to get it to grip anything down the Deep, Narrow, Ominous Hole into the bowels of the engine that the back spark plug resides in. Looking at the front spark plug would have required me to slide the entire radiator forward, and it didn't want to go. But then, the instructions for removing the fairing (the big plastic shields on the front of the motorcycle) didn't seem accurate either -- I'm not sure how they unhooked the thing they unhooked, but it looked like it was screwed in very tightly from the inside when I looked at it. Obviously that means I need to look again, and in better light.

But the bike seems to run as well as it did before, despite my ministrations. The funny noise remains unchanged. Next up will be changing the oil on my own, which should be pretty straightforward once I get an oil filter wrench and a drain pan. I've done it before in company, just not solo.

I've been asked to take pictures of my motorcycle boots. I took a couple. I was taking a couple of pictures of me in gear (hey, why not?) when the camera battery ran out. I changed it, then remembered that my spare was dead too. One of 'em is charging now, but until then the pictures are still stuck in the camera since I don't have an external CompactFlash reader.

Comments

[stephtoth.livejournal.com]

your wrench and spark plug problem sounds eirily familiar to me, like I"ve read about it in a novel before, and I somewhat suspect that that novel was zen and the art of motercycle maintenance. They knew the answer to the problem in whatever book it was I read, so you should go read that book and all your problems, mechanical and metaphisical, shall melt away...

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I've read that novel, though not since I started actually riding a motorcycle. I recall a problem with being out of gas, and another involving shims and coke cans, and a third involving incompetent mechanics and cylinder heads... Nothing specifically about spark plugs offhand, though.

It's worth a read-through again just on principle, but I suspect there are easier ways to solve my spark plug wrench problems.

[oren.livejournal.com]

I had to ditch the spark plug wrench I got which was too short for the plugs. I just went to Kragen auto or Pep Boys and got a long socket for my ratchet which worked much better.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get it to seat, but it seems to be long enough. I wouldn't want it much longer because of the weird angle I have to use it at -- the engine is just under the edge of the flipped-up gas tank.