4 Mechanical Jobs Every Motorcyclist Should Learn

hello I'm Ryan f9 and these are for mechanical jobs I wish I learned sooner number one how to balance a wheel first you need a wheel stand for low speed tires I can get away with using the existing axle and a couple of car jacks do my bearings make a frictionless pivot point no is the ground perfectly level no do I need to balance to a fraction of a degree not with the scrappy adventure tire of course companies like bike master will try to sell you a more refined tailor-made tool for 150 bucks it's probably not a bad idea for high-performance wheels imprecise balancing can leave a slight wobble to most riders it's going to be unnoticeable but if you're riding 200 miles per hour on a stiff sport bike everything is magnified if that's you the bike master has a precisely straight pinching rod sitting on rollers with miniscule coefficients of friction and the whole thing is a movable heavy and perfectly level all I do is give the wheel a little motion and then wait for the heaviest part to settle at the bottom [Music] [Applause] [Music] thinking of which these are motion Pro wheel weights they're heavy and sticky and cheap and basically the same as every other option actually that's not quite true you can't get these in especially small three and a half gram increments which is nice because motorcycle tires don't need much less weight more precision better balance the thick adhesive will also stick to rough cast wheels and smooth spoke ease alike some people put duct tape over top to be doubly sure but these ones do come in color match black nickel plated and silver powder coat so it seems a bit of a shame to cover them up and if you are sticking them to a spokes wheel you can check for a rim warp with the wheel balancers stylus just make sure to do any spoke tension adjustments before balancing at this point someone is gonna bring up the bloody beads yes a tire can balance itself as it rolls yes that means putting tiny marbles in there yes they get stuck in the valve and flatten the tire yes they stick to plugs and patches making more imbalance than balance and no they're not a good idea now this is a $2.00 tool that I didn't know how to use for an embarrassingly long time it's especially shameful because spark plug gap errs are important the distance between my electrodes can cause more horsepower less horsepower more misfires less misfires more fuel consumption less fuel consumption and if I dig it too much from spec as the pharmaceutical ads say in rare pieces symptoms may include death of the spark plug I'm not you so here's how the gapper works pushed down on the ground electrode to decrease the gap or use the little hole to widen the gap just like a bottle opener speaking of which the other end of this thing is actually a bottle opener because no motorcyclist can get through a 30 second task without needing a booze break once I'm good and drunk I'll check the gap using these sections of various thickness the holy book decreased 0.7 to 0.8 millimeters from my bike so that is what I'm trying to hit there are also round gradated tools with more measurement options it even has units in both Imperial and metric which this tool sorely lacks however the coin style Gabor's are turi ously inaccurate they look like two knees they constitute E and a micrometer will prove you get what you pay for in contrast the motion Pro gapper is criminally over priced at $15 but at least the 0.5 slot is actually 0.5 millimeters thick the other thing about rotational gap errs is there's always a temptation to widen the plug by positioning it on the tool and then twisting until you reach your measurement that's bad see whenever you gap a plug you should be careful to put the least amount of force on that Center electrode don't even touch it if you can avoid it because oftentimes this is fragile iridium or platinum and it easily succumbs to bandage well you have your plugs out might as well compare them to a chart legend has it there's an old fortune teller living in the Peruvian caves who can discern the lost symbols of carbon fouling oil fouling rich lean over heating and the like and before you stick them back put that bottle opener to better use can crack some cleaning alcohol can't drink it but it does prevent like oily fingerprints from causing hot spots now our next tool is ten times more expensive and ten times more importance to be friends with this is a motion prochain breaker and Riveter and it can save your life par example I could break a chain out here 30 kilometers from anything capable of busting off a broken link and replacing it with a spare master so carry one of these and more importantly know how to use it we're gonna practice here in the warm garage before I have to do this in the hand shaking nerve rattling cold of a remote forest step one is easy put together the handle for leverage put together the spring-loaded pin so it cranks down and pulls back once the job is done put together the hand crank and put yourself together see mental calm is crucial to chain breaking popping one of these rivets is going to put a ton of pressure on the little pin that's in here so I want to crank with all the confidence of a booby child now just make a little turn reassess is that still all lined up and I crank again a few times and think okay it is feel okay it's a good thing that the motion pro comes with a hand-cranked rather than a ratchet because it lets me feel and sympathize with the pressure I'm putting into my poor little pit yeah there she goes speaking of which I do get three pins per set two three and four millimeters you only need one size per chain and the right one but if I do happen to snap a pin it's nice to know there's a plan B and C forgetting me back on the road now motion pro says these can break any chain below 520 without grinding in the rivet head first in the field I'd try it but in the garage I never risk breaking my tool so I dremeled first besides busting a chain this tool can also rivet a master link back together I recommend buying more masters than you need and they're five bucks and a heavy-handed mechanic will often break one on the first truck a heavy-handed rider will also break chains so it's nice to have a spare master out here now the rivet kind preferably because they're stronger than the clip ones now motion pro cleverly designed the pinch plates to only fit the right way around so I can't really screw this up then I just place it around the master and ratchet like a booby child small turn second-guess myself recheck the alignment another little turn third guess myself readjust the alignment again and keep checking for the free movement of the chain as I go ideally you'll know your plates are tight enough when the calipers with magic spec of course not every master length makes it clear what spec should be so here's a rule of thumb if you can just see the line where the material changes to the hollow rivet point above the plate and you've probably gone far enough and if the chain is binding meaning it comes off the sprocket stiff and kink like mine is then you know you've gone too far the Masters toast break it and start again good thing we bought that spare one last step install the anvil and the Riveter which do hollow points only and crank it down like a baby child until you flatten the rivet head I usually smoosh until the diameter of my rivets roughly matches that of the factory ones and that's it job done and game practice is to relocate the tool for next time just because of the factory stuff doesn't last and then return the pieces to its carrying case motion Pro does make a slightly smaller tool without the case that's 25 bucks I'd rather not save as it is this tool is just beefy enough for moto chains while still compact enough to carry on a motorcycle it's uniquely well suited for our use if not uniquely well-made so best to avoid the cheaper one final job every motorcyclist should learn how to check wheel alignment for one it's important not only mess with the chain and adjusted in a rear-wheel could be offline with the front or off parallel both create dangerous handling quirks and for two it's really easy to check alignment all you need is a string a ruler and some tape anything that the shops do on a thousand dollar machine yet can be done by rating in a kindergarten arts and crafts room is worth learning first wrap your string around the rear wheel second pull your strings to the front and secure them around the ruler at the width of the rear tire I'm running a 110 back there so my strings are 11 centimeters apart now wedge the ruler against the front tire and adjust it back and forth until both strings touch the leading sidewall of the rear tire like so at this point we have two parallel lines indicating the rear tires alignment if it matches the front the midpoint of the rear tire should sit right on the midpoint of the front in the same way the distance between the front side wall and the string should be equal on both sides any small misalignment will be easily visible so if you're off by centimeters at the front adjust by millimeters at the back and then reassess and that's it for mechanical jobs I didn't know but we're really worth learning thanks for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: FortNine

Views: 2,285,739

Rating: 4.9155436 out of 5

Keywords: Motorcycle Mechanics, How-to, motorcycle, fortnine, ryanf9, chain breaker, chain riveter, master link, how to motorcycle chain, adjustment, motorcycle wheel alignment, how to gap a spark plug, spark plug, spark plug tool, wheel balance, wheel weights, how to balance a wheel, how to mechanics, drz400, suzuki, spark plug gap, motorcycle spark plug, bike, chain tension adjustment, how to break a chain, how to master link, rivet master link, clip master link, motorcycle maintenance

Id: zsGN9GVjBwo

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 24 2017