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Tales from the crib - What is the worst maintenance items you've encountered with your bike?

R3DS!X said:
Tuning carbs on my F3. Bitch to get to,remove, fiddle, balance, test, reinstall, re fucking move again, fiddle, repeat. Fuck more than two carbs!
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You really wouldn’t like owning an old CBX then.
 
Personally my frustration rises according to the ratio of how difficult/annoying something is to do versus how difficult it should be, if that makes sense.

For example, how easy could engineers possibly make it to remove carbs or drop a motor, therefore if I have to do those things I am resigned to the hassle. However, some things should be no brainers, and then when you try to do it you are baffled by the insane decisions made by some jerk with a drafting table.

Recently I learned that I need to remove bodywork with hex wrenches of three different sizes to CHANGE A FUSE on my hypermotard. This only took about 2 minutes but come on, Giuseppi.
 
NoTraffic said:
Not really maintenance but I had a PIA ground wire that kept blowing main fuses on a first gen sv. Every other time I rode, the fuse would blow and all the electrics would go out including the engine dying. Had to carry around a box of fuses. Took off all fairings 4-5x trying to diagnose the issue. Finally, I see a small amount of smoke coming from the rear tail and see where a ground wire had worn down to the exposed wire. In the slightest cornering, the wire would touch bare metal and then blow. Put some electrical tape around it and issue finally gone but it was a very frustrating 3 weeks for me. That's when I knew it made sense to get a backup bike.
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You deserve a Sherlock Holmes award. Good damn job! I wonder how much that would have cost, to bring the bike in to a mechanic and wait for him to find it. I mean, maybe just as fast. But maybe not at all.:thumbup
 
dravnx said:
Reinstalling the valve cover on my Gen III FJR1300. MM clearance and the gasket keeps getting in the way. Ended up gluing the gasket to the cover and knowing next time Ill need a new gasket.
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Curious. Miles when you checked?
And were any of the valve clearances out of spec?
 
CX500. Wasn't running right. Mechanic friend said pull the pistons to check rings n stuff.

Engine out.
Dismantle the entire fucking engine to nuts and bolts.
Go fucking crazy.
 
Interesting thing about the Goldwing...checking the valve clearances takes a small fraction of the time that it requires to change the air filter...

They have a weird combination of things that are a total snap to do and others that are a total pain-in-the-ass to do.
 
Bay Arean said:
You deserve a Sherlock Holmes award. Good damn job! I wonder how much that would have cost, to bring the bike in to a mechanic and wait for him to find it. I mean, maybe just as fast. But maybe not at all.:thumbup
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Ha ha, thanks. I probably would've owed the mechanic the value of the bike. There is no instrument to my knowledge that would test for something of this nature. I'd throw a new fuse in, lean it to the left and right at standstill, all is fine and dandy. Take it out on the highway, BOOM - fuse blown. If anyone has this issue, I can point you to where it chafes on stock wire routing.
 
BMW R 100 RT (yeah, I know, really old)

Fairing sections assembled with #8 nuts and studs. The right side upper to the right side lower has a stud/nut that even the factory manual says cannot be reattached when taken apart.

The factory is correct.

Sold the damn thing for pocket change and was happy to get it.
 
2014 BMW 1200GS stator replacement. Stator $1800, remove engine and split cases 7 1/2 at $150.00 an hour.
 
Tales from the crib are stories like Snow White. Tales from the crypt are campy horror stories.
 
Climber said:
Interesting thing about the Goldwing...checking the valve clearances takes a small fraction of the time that it requires to change the air filter...

They have a weird combination of things that are a total snap to do and others that are a total pain-in-the-ass to do.
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And the irony of Gold Wing maintenance intervals is that the air cleaner gets checked/replaced more often than the interval for valve inspections.
 
Gary856 said:
Tales from the crib are stories like Snow White. Tales from the crypt are campy horror stories.
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And I was reading it, laughing, because somehow I took CRIB to be a slang term for one's abode. But then I learned idiom in the 60's, silly me.
 
Pushrod said:
And the irony of Gold Wing maintenance intervals is that the air cleaner gets checked/replaced more often than the interval for valve inspections.
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That's true. Replace air filter every 16k miles, valve clearances every 32k miles.

Brakes are interesting since the foot brake is linked to both front and rear brakes and also to an anti-dive valve on the front forks.
 
'83 BMW R100RS, roadside r/r of the alternator, had to use folded up skinny zip ties as helper springs for the (worn) brushes to make contact with the armature rings

I miss that bike, I may need to get another one, someday
 
No real difficult to do but a known weak spot on my old Sportster was the concave shaped snap ring that held the shifter detent plate in place. It broke on me probably 5 times before I had the upgraded shift drum installed at 86,000 miles.
 
Climber said:
That's true. Replace air filter every 16k miles, valve clearances every 32k miles.
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I took a trip down 395 a few years back, some of the side trips included dirt roads like the road to Bodie state park. I was concerned about the air filter so I decided to change it when I got back, even had some great tips and pictures from the gl1800 riders forum along with the factory service manual.

I've done a fair amount of maintenance on my '05 Goldwing, most pretty straight forward. But just getting to the air cleaner was ridiculous, seems most of the electronics are all stored on top of the air box. It's not hard or difficult, just tedious and time consuming.

However, once I got there and removed the old filter, it was hardly different from the new filter. I put the new filter anyway because I doubt I'm going to do that job again.
 
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