About wrenching @%^$!@

[akira700]

Hey all,

Worked a bit on my bike this weekend. Now with the new baby in the household its increasingly difficult to find time for working on my bike
without great irritation coming from the new mom.

Well it was great then this long weekend (no work for me Monday)
to work a bit on my bike. I cleaned my air filter (re-oiled it)
and did some electric work on my tail light wiring to make it
easy to disconnect it without having to remove the tail fairing
for track days.

One thing I have to say that I HATE it when you drop a fastener or washer
down into the core of the bike. I had a scare where I thought I dropped a
washer down into my cylinders. Plus the washer was not magnetic, so I couldn't just fish it out with the long magnet.
Anyway what should have been a simple 1 hour job became a 3 hour headache with my having to fish the washer out of my velocity stacks using a thin wire hook, a flashlight and a small dental type mirror to be able to see down into the bike at the right angle. After using the mirror I have to reccomend that everyone have one of these in your tool box. Another fastener I got out with "the old shake the bike violently" method till it dropped on the ground. This method is always dicey as sometimes you risk getting the fastener even deeper into the innards of the bike.
Anyway I began the work saying to myself I am not going to drop any screws or washers... then end up losing two !

Anyway how many times have you all dropped something while working on your bike making the job a big fishing expedition ? Doesnt it suck?

[Kitt]

when I swapped superchargers on my cobra, I dropped a small machine screw and couldn't find it anywhere. I spent an extra 6 hours pulling the motor apart and hunting with a magnet and still couldn't find it... I thought it fropped into the lower intake manifold, but apparently not. The car made lots of power and never had an issue.

[SSearchVT]

This is a mistake everyone makes - once maybe twice... After taking the engine out of the frame on a MX bike to get a circlip out of the crank - I'm paranoid. Rags, blue painters tape, etc. That's not to say I haven't dropped bolts and nuts deep into the frame (magnetic retriever, and the little one with the flex shaft and spring fingers - right in the tool box) - I haven't dropped them down into the spinning parts again...

[akira700]

You know what's another thing that sucks?

Ever lose the battery terminal nut ? My CBR has this
evil narrow slot next to the battery compartment made
to trap little parts ! Man is it a pain to get those out...
For this I made an attachment to my shop vac that went
down to 1/4 inch plastic hose.
Times like these really test your ingenuity!

[SVRACER01]

its one of those lessons you learn once. now all opening get covered with a rag