How hard can it be? A 16 year old with a diploma from the local collage can do it, that polish chap I met at Chiswick Honda can do it, so can I. In fact, I booked myself onto a Motorcycle Mechanics course at Merton Collage in South London (just to be safe) – I’m half way through it and according to my notes we’ve covered everything I need for the service – apart from everything else, and as my tutor likes to point out – the course has given me the confidence to work on my bike, if not the actual skills.
Three days ago I started the service, it’s taken two of those to clear the crap in the garage to a point where I can get around the bike (It’s pissing down outside) and a day to take all the bloody plastic, screen, tank, seat and all the other stuff that seems so unimportant now my aim is to cause grieves enginely harm to my bike. All that done I’ve replaced the spark plugs – dear god how difficult is that! Or rather more to the point, did Honda think about getting to the spark plugs when they designed the engine? I don’t think they did, but three and a half hours later I’ve got the old ones out, the new ones (gaps checked) in and tightened and the leads plugged in. Shame I didn’t think to look at the manual for the ordering of the leads – it’s amazing how much noise a bike can make when you get cylinder 3 and 4 confused.
Next came the oil change – nice and easy only took me an hour or so, in fact I was pleasantly surprised, apart from nearly destroying the old filter because I thought I could use a cheap Halfords filter remover (chain) rather than the proper part (must get that ordered). The other thing I found interesting is how the hell you tell if you have enough oil in there? I followed the instructions in the shop manual but my pristine, brand new Castrol oil is so beautifully clear that I can’t tell how far up the dip stick it is – I’ve stuck to the shop manual and put in exactly 3.8 litres of oil – let’s hope this works.
Frankly that’s as far as I’ve got – I’ve done valve clearances at collage on a single cylinder bike – easy enough – but mine scares me so it’s going to the garage for that – as it is for the carburettor synchronisation – I think I’ll be booking onto the advanced course at collage next year. Everything else is just inspection (chain etc which I can do with my eyes shut – in fact that’s what I get accused of every time the garage has to fix my mistakes) so let’s just cross fingers I don’t blow the CBF up like I did my very first bike – a 1997 (brand new) CZ 125.
