Re: Do It Yourself!

agree to this & i have been a limited diy guy.
hell, in rains, i was always scared of the dreaded 'point' on my bull & i never failed to be astonished how the local mechanic used to efficiently nitpick it & fire-up the behemoth at last.
there were times when i was scared witless of opening up the carburetor to clean up the 'waati' [the bottom portion of the carb that accumulates all the crap / rust n what not].
over the years, i've become a partial diy guy so much so that i can fend for myself shud i face a breakdown in the middle of nowhere using diy tools & lil bit of commonsense.
however, in all humility, i am still way far & beyond from tinkering w/ the engine, the pistons, the coils, etc.
yes, knowing the innards of the machine, will, by default, make u aware of how the damned things works & can be fixed whereby making u a more sensible person.

Re: Do It Yourself!

Nice article, especially at this age when people are afraid to do a DIY. From long conversation with several friends & other wise people, my thoughts are that most people do not know what is going on. Less the knowledge, more the fear of screwing up something. That reminds me...

In the late 80's when computers were fast catching up in schools , we all used to sit on the computer lab floor & were called one by one by the instructor; our teacher instructs us to press one key & then go back to the place where we were sitting. After this class, we come back & start making jokes like we press one wrong key & the computer would burn off would be fumes appearing from computer. Today, I'm typing it like a joke after having assembled 2 systems all by myself & fixing so many issues. Point being, unless I get into the mess, I wouldn't have learned.

Talking about getting into the mess, few people volunteer to get get their hands dirty (out of curiosity, hunger of learning or fun & interest), few people out of necessity & the last category, who never learns. Most of them depends upon the way they're bought up, how they learned & what interests them in life.

After rebuilding a motorcycle, I learned an undeniable truth that, most often, motorcycles are meant to be ridden on the road than to be parked in the garage waiting to get fixed.

Our own dear forum has baptized so many DIY experts from a simple motorcycling enthusiasts. In this age of internet & social media, that has abundance of knowledge floating around, it's really easy to learn & walk the DIY way.

Re: Do It Yourself!

Do-It-Yourself certainly helps and is very much necessary these days. In my perspective, DIY takes two forms - theory and practical that will blend very well.
Without theory practical sessions go wrong and without understanding the theory practicals would result in disaster.

I had developed the passion for DIY when I started looking out to purchase a pre-owned car. I learnt a lot on basics which then motivated me to get started on general DIYs like tightening nuts, cleaning rusts, etc., and then gradually to changing oils, cables, etc., and now to understanding symptoms of malfunctioning mechanical parts. Trust me, finding a good local and a friendly mechanic is also a DIY .

While not all of my DIY(s) were successful it gave definitely took me little closer to my machines. I now feel much closer to my bike and car such that I can understand if something is wrong or even before it goes wrong. I have also lost lot of money in these DIY.

Few of my DIY(s) include painting my dear own P150, cleaning its carbs, changing cables, brake shoes, dashboard lights on my car, 3M under body and floor coating, coolant changes, engine oil change on bike, TB cleaning and fuel filter changes on car, etc.,

DIY is a passion for me now and I am gradually learning when my wife is not around .
I use resources like our forum, google and chit-chat with local mechanics apart from lot of research before getting my hands greasy.

My only wish is that someday I could do a surgery on my TVS Scooty!!!
Miles to go...

Re: Do It Yourself!

Do It Yourself - The 3 beautiful words for any passionate engineer. DIY was in my blood from the very age of 5. Used to fix the wheel of my toy car. Then as age increase so did the curiosity of how things worked. Started fixing small things in the house of course with the help of my DIY Engineer father. In fact I was waiting for things to go out of order to start working on them. Finished my BE (Mechanical) and my passion grew more for DIY. But as the machines became complex and sophisticated. I started to take more precautions like get hands on the service manual and advise from experts before plunging into a DIY. I think I became more of a mature DIY person. Doing things the methodical way. I started planning my DIY with the apt amount of time and strength to do the DIY.

The beauty of any DIY is that it helps you to learn to be patient with things. Sometimes you could get frustrated at not achieving you required results. But then again most of the DIY is a trial and error method. It tends to test you ability to stay charm and get to the final result. As time goes by we will learn from our mistakes and take things in the correct way.

I am working in an engineering firm as an R&D Manager. Now my passion has become my work. Thanks to the heavens.

Cheers

Mathews

Re: Do It Yourself!

A lovely write up. Loved every word of it. Especially the part about the satisfaction being proportional to the intensity of the issue. Brilliant.

Re: Do It Yourself!

Reading this article again after a long time brings back a lot of memories that made me realise that i am a much bigger idiot that i had assumed. dropping that timing chain bolt into the crank case and spending over a day to then remove the engine form the chassis, only to realise that the oil that is supposed to lubricate the internals is now on your external features!.
Similar are the cases when:-
you assemble the engine to realise that you forgot to insert the the timing chain guide into the block before asembling the head
you asssemble the block only to realise that you forgot to replace the gasket.
you open the block again to assemble the gasket and you find that the old gasket is stuck to the block and it refuses to come out
you search your fully loaded toolkit to find that the blade is missing since you took it out last night and kept it on the table in the spur of laziness
you climb up the stairs to fetch the knife, scrape off the gasket, reassemble the block.
you put the timing chain guide on the the block, assemble the head, cams to realise again the gasket is torn.
you get frustrated, use anabond to seal the torn portion, proceed with the assembly and now realise that the timing mark was shifted when you assembled the upper cam sprocket.
you match the sprocket, check timing, gingerly handcrank the engine, assemble the head , double check if you missed something, finally start the engine only to relaise that the tappets havent been set and the engine makes more noise than a death metal concert.
you curse your neighbor and the curious kids of your apartment and get to the task of opening the engine again, set the timing without filler guage and reassemble.
you start the engine and finally get it working worse than you started.

and the next time the process starts over yet again untill you finally achieve the OEM level of smoothness and realise that the roadside chotu isnt as dumb afterall.

All this for geting that little bit of dirt out that wouldnt harm the engine anyway. But at the end of the day, the satisfaction of pottering arorund in a mildly less vibrating and clean bike is worth it. and the next weekend, you again get down to the parking lot looking to resolve another set of non existent niggle....
All in all, working on your bike is like teaching your kid a new game. you get frustrated a lot and most of the time the kid does what he will do anyways. but when he does it exactly as you wanted, its the moment of redemption.. Pure Nirvana