{"id":2247,"date":"2011-05-30T12:02:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T18:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=2247"},"modified":"2011-05-30T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T18:06:17","slug":"make-a-mechanic-of-you-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/make-a-mechanic-of-you-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Make a Mechanic of You Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shift<\/p>\n

I know they were just letting me nibble at the bait, considering taking a big bite, when they’ll set the hook.<\/p>\n

They, in this case, are the guys at the DOHC Customs forum<\/a>, a web forum for owners–like me–of old Honda CBs, primarily of the Custom variety. That is, my bike is a CB750 Custom and there are also CB900 Customs, CB1000 Customs, as well as CB750K models and others.<\/p>\n

A big part of the focus of this forum is helping owners keep their aging beasts alive. I had joined the forum in 2008 but had not been active.<\/p>\n

I noticed recently that there was a good bit of oil collecting on the lower extremities of the bike, right around the centerstand area. Thinking I might be low on oil due to the leak, I checked it. Dang! It was way overfull! Did I top it off recently? Or did the shop overfill it the last time I had it in for work? I have no idea.<\/p>\n

But the question I now had was, is all this leakage an indication of a blown seal? So I went to the forum to ask that question, and I also asked if it was something I could easily fix on my own. I’m not much of a mechanic but as broke as I am these days I wanted to avoid taking it to the shop if I could.<\/p>\n

The answers from the forum were yes and yes. I was told it was most likely to be the shift shaft seal, which I have indicated in that photo above. That rod coming out right there is what the gear shift lever is attached to, which I had removed before the picture was taken. The seal is slipped over the shaft and pressed into place there in the engine body.<\/p>\n

I plunged right in but quickly started catching all kinds of crap. It turns out I had not sufficiently boned up on forum etiquette and proceeded to annoy several of the guys, who didn’t hesitate to express their displeasure. The discussion was a little tense for awhile but I was properly contrite and we got past that.<\/p>\n

The repair job was indeed pretty simple, although there were a few things I had to figure out on my own. And I did. I’ve worked as a tech writer and I know how people who know their subject really well can often skip over steps they take for granted, not realizing the uninitiated just don’t know these things, and therefore find a disconnect between steps.<\/p>\n

So for the $6.43 the seal cost me I fixed my bike. And I learned a bunch, too. I wouldn’t object to learning how to work on my bike. I sure hate what I’ve had to pay over the years to keep this bike running. I know the guys on the forum are just waiting for me to take a bigger bite on this bait.<\/p>\n

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner<\/strong>
\nAllstate will install caution signs for motorists to look for motorcycles<\/a><\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

It ain’t broke ’til you can’t fix it anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know they were just letting me nibble at the bait, considering taking a big bite, when they’ll set the hook. They, in this case, are the guys at the DOHC Customs forum, a web forum for owners–like me–of old Honda CBs, primarily of the Custom variety. That is, my bike is a CB750 Custom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[384],"class_list":["post-2247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle-problems","tag-motorcycle-repair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2255,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}