How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?

[Kazairl]

I have my moments.

[jjsC6]

Over the years I've done it all - including rebuild an engine completely.  But there is a line we hope to cross in life.  The line goes from having more time than money to more money than time.  No - it's not always that simple, but there is a bit of truth to it for me.  At this point in my life, the valve job has become complex enough that I don't want to give up a weekend doing it so at some point I'll take it to a dealer on Tuesday morning and have it back in time to ride Saturday.  But most of the routine stuff I do my self still.  I still change my oil on all of my vehicles and on the motorcycle I pull both wheels off the bike and take them to the dealer for tire changes.  I also do all of the farkles myself.

[mkorn]

I have done everything on the list except ... change the clutch!
if it needs a new clutch i will change that too. just havent gotten to that point  yet. 

[CrashKLRtoConnie]

Over the years I've done it all - including rebuild an engine completely.  But there is a line we hope to cross in life.  The line goes from having more time than money to more money than time.  No - it's not always that simple, but there is a bit of truth to it for me.  At this point in my life, the valve job has become complex enough that I don't want to give up a weekend doing it so at some point I'll take it to a dealer on Tuesday morning and have it back in time to ride Saturday.  But most of the routine stuff I do my self still.  I still change my oil on all of my vehicles and on the motorcycle I pull both wheels off the bike and take them to the dealer for tire changes.  I also do all of the farkles myself.

Good points. I used to do all my own repair and services because I was a poor kid. (Paper Route nets $50 a month). Once I got good at doing my own repairs I often got a new bike that I had to learn its services all over again. (Going from a 4 stoke Honda to a 2 stroke Suzuki was fun). I also started riding before cell phones so I needed to be able to repair almost any issues once I was 5 miles from the nearest pay phone. As I am still learning the C14 and lucky enough to have some tools and skills I now find myself trying to define how much do I need to know and be able to do, so to be able to enjoy good reliability without excessive effort and cost. (good reliability mean my wife does not get worried or sees a large credit card towing bill). Your and others inputs and the poll voting is helping me define my future focus.

Thank you all in that regard

[gflint]

I used to be a professional motorcycle mechanic so I can do it all.  But now my garage is full of my wife's stuff (my wife collects stuff and puts it in the garage) so I have no room to work on the bikes.  Heaven forbid if I should move some stuff.  So if it cannot be done in the driveway on a sunny day it goes to the shop.