Monday, March 23, 2009

More manly - less hair

This past week I became more manly. Which by definition means getting greasy and dirty and taking apart mechanical things that you don't really know how to put back together again. Last fall I discovered that one of the fork seals on my motorcycle was leaking suspension fluid. The reality is that bad seals/suspension does two things: bumps are bad and if the oil leaks on your breaks, they might stop working. This usually leads to a spectacular crash and an increase in insurance rates or a depressing funeral.

The local bike shop wanted 300 bucks to do the work. I knew the parts would only run me $30. So, being the cheap skate that I am, I decide to do it myself. This past week was spring break and I had a couple of days free. The easy part was taking it the front wheel and the suspension forks off (the source of the problem.)
The next step was to open up the forks, empty out the old oil, and to replace the rubber seal and dust cap.
This lead to the obligatory lego instructions of confusion about which part goes where and of course the realization that there is a special tool that you don't have. But ingenuity and a large rubber mallet tends to fix a lot of mechanical problems...
and then the finished result. It takes a real man to trust an amateur to fix his ride.
P.S. Next weeks project is to update my will.

3 comments:

Cheryl said...

So.........How's it riding?
Anything fall on yet?? hee, hee!!

Rahni said...

Nice bike! If you're coming to Alaska before summer, feel free to replace my Honda's battery for me. I lack the motivation to acquire such biker knowledge as fork removal, etc. ;o)

StarScout said...

What a man!! I second that trip to Alaska!