1985 honda magna

1985 honda magna

1985 Honda Magna VF700C

Advice on beginning motorcycle repair: As mentioned in my earlier question, I spent approximately $1500 on?

repairing my 1985 700cc Honda Magna. It was in bad condition (previous owner(s) did a poor job of taking care of everything but the shiny gas tank) and I'm not very mechanically inclined so I let my local Honda moto dealer take care of it. Now I'm broke, its wintertime in Rochester, NY, and I purchased a Clymer manual for my Honda Magna. I read over the manual specifically looking at the clutch, tuneup, and recently the forks.

A lot of the repair and tuneup procedures look pretty difficult to someone like me who has no experience dealing with mechanical things (I'm a 21/m/NY college student studying Finance), and I don't want to mess with things (like some websites suggest) if there's a chance that I'll break/damage or not put something together right.

In summary, should I A) enroll in a motorcycle repair course after college? B) Hang out at local biker bars and try to befriend older men (no pun intended) who know how to repair their bikes? C) Mess with my bike and pray.

Some people are naturally mechanically inclined, inexperienced maybe but they have the ability. Other people could go to school, have an old pro teach them hands on and they'd still never master it.

I remember your earlier one about the forks, for the time being don't worry about them. If you don't like the oil misting up things, cut a strip of foam rubber or a strip of cloth, slip th erubber fork tube covers upward and put the cloth or foam in the space and replace the covers. That will catch any oil that gets by. When they run too low on oil, you'll know because it you push down on the handlebars, the fork will spring up and down like a pogo stick. If it doesn't, you still have adequate oil.

The others have given good advice and I know there's books out there for "dummies" (no offense intended) on every subject known to man. Try to find one, especially one that will go into general detail about what goes on inside your bike. The secret to finding a problem and fixing it is to know the principle behind it's operation. The best way to figure out how an engine operates is to find an old lawnmower engine and take it apart. They're pretty crude compared to other engines, but the principles are the same.

Start on simple things and as you progress, you'll gain confidence. Here's a good example of confidence. Last year I removed the engine from my Kawasaki 1000 and replaced it with a newer, different model engine. I had to build rubber mounted motor mounts, get the engine in exactly the right position because it was shaft drive, build a muffler system and so on. I had the bike totally apart, the only thing I didn't separate was the swingarm from the frame. I had the new engine totally torn down to replace the crankshaft. I got it together, fired it up and 10 days later I took off on a 3000 mile trip and it ran flawlessly. I'm not bragging but rather showing what self confidence in my mechanical abilities allows me to do. In addition, the bike is 28 years old and dealers don't carry any parts, so if I screwed up, I was in big trouble. Good luck and hang in there. If you need any advice or have questions, email me and I'll be glad to help. One last thing, be careful of people who give you a quick, short answer to a mechanical question. I've found they're usually wrong.