The Amateur Bike Mechanic Again

Those of you who don't read the comments to my entries might still be wondering if I got into an accident on the motorcycle. No, thankfully that is not the case, but I am still suffering the pain--of the world's longest oil and filter change. I have a maintenance manual for my bike--I don't remember the brand name of the manual, but it's from one of those companies that makes manuals for every vehicle. I have no trouble understanding manual instructions: unscrew this, take this out, put this in, etc. It's always simple stuff. The problem always comes in finding and using the correct tool for each of those steps, because the instructions never tell you that. But why not? You would think that a particular model of vehicle would be manufactured with the same size screws and bolts for each particular part. Oh well, I suppose these manuals are written generically enough so that they can be easily used for other vehicles too. Hand in hand with having the right tool is interference removal--stuff that doesn't need fixing but is in the way of whatever you're trying to fix. Sometimes if you have the right tool some interference removal can be eliminated. But usually that is impossible, so you have to remove some extra stuff. In this case, I made the mistake of thinking the manual instructions wouldn't make me do extra, unnecessary things--like take off both exhaust pipes. That was a pain in the ass, and, I assumed, completely necessary. Since this was my first time changing the oil filter, I didn't know exactly what covered what and even where the filter was located. But now that I have it back together, it appears that taking off the exhaust pipes was completely unnecessary. Thanks, Haynes... oh now I remember your name.

So this whole process of getting the right oil, filter, tools, taking apart the exhaust system, getting other parts*, draining the oil, replacing the oil filter, putting back together the exhaust system, and filling the oil has taken me more than a week from beginning to end. I'm still not quite done as I somehow came up 12 oz short of oil, and have a dead battery (that's another story). Maybe by next week the bike will be up and running again. Certainly by Worldwide Motorcycle Ride to Work Day.

*new exhaust bolts to replace rusty ones, also new exhaust gasket which will hopefully stop my right leg from getting scorched at stoplights