Kawasaki Concours Forum

The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 03, 2011, 10:36:57 AM

Title: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 03, 2011, 10:36:57 AM
Just want to get a handle on what service is most common for the group to do.

You can vote up to 10 times

Happy pre 4th of July to Everyone ...  ;D
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: VirginiaJim on July 03, 2011, 10:57:57 AM
'Clean' should be a separate option....
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 03, 2011, 12:07:58 PM
Added Clean as a separate poll item  :)
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: VirginiaJim on July 03, 2011, 01:45:22 PM
Excellent!
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: ZG on July 03, 2011, 04:35:11 PM
Happy pre 4th of July to Everyone ...  ;D

 :chugbeer: :chugbeer: :chugbeer:
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: C1xRider on July 03, 2011, 04:40:19 PM
Clean makes 11 choices, and since I do everything to my bike(s), I guess I'll just skip cleaning them from now on...  ::)
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Bourne2Ride on July 03, 2011, 04:53:27 PM
I'm a "gas 'er up and check the tire pressure." kind of guy; but after getting my bike serviced recently for over $200 I realized, Its time for me to get under the shade tree and get to servicing my own bike; besides these skills may help me out on the road. I know it's not rocket science, and I spend all my time working on high end computer servers (my day job); so I have the competence to work on my bike. So I will.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: booger on July 03, 2011, 05:48:27 PM
 I value my leasure time at $90/hour.

Although there are some exceptions, if the job is less than that, I pay to have it done.

If it's more, I do it myself.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: manowarwi on July 04, 2011, 07:34:10 PM
I like to do as much work myself as reasonable.  I find getting my hands dirty enjoyable and consider it my bonding time with my bike.  That being said, I accept my limitations as an IT professional and probably wouldn't tackle something like valve adjustments or syncing throttle bodies. 

I also own a newer import car as well and still enjoy changing my own oil/fluids and rotating tires on that as well.  I can say I've changed my own tires once on my bike and that is something I'm now more than happy to pay someone else $20-$30/tire to handle for me. 
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Kazairl on July 04, 2011, 11:07:24 PM
I'm a mechanic as my day job. So I pretty much do it all except change my own tires.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: So Cal Joe on July 05, 2011, 08:02:11 AM
Only have 7700 miles on my bike so I haven't had to do some of the other stuff yet, I did it on my previous bikes but I don't know if I will do it on this one.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: JetJock on July 05, 2011, 08:18:33 AM
Do what I gotta and have most of the tools. But also have a garage full of race bikes that need lots of attention. So with the C14, anything major time-consuming goes to the dealer so I can ride instead of wrench.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 06, 2011, 10:18:49 PM
Results So Far (n = 75 voters)

Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Bob on July 07, 2011, 04:18:53 AM
This is a poorly designed poll! You ask for what people do. You have 11 choices but say you can only choose 10. Which one do you leave off if you have done them all? I guess people who do all these tasks can't vote!  It tells you there's an error. On who's part? :o
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: VirginiaJim on July 07, 2011, 04:28:46 AM
Mellow is the word of the day, Bob....
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Shoe on July 07, 2011, 07:05:38 AM
Amazing results. Unless I am not reading the results correctly only 13.8% check their own tire pressure and pump their own gas.  :o
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 07, 2011, 08:03:12 AM
Amazing results. Unless I am not reading the results correctly only 13.8% check their own tire pressure and pump their own gas.  :o

81 out of 84   .... 96% ....

The poll allows for multi voting.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 07, 2011, 08:18:22 AM
This is a poorly designed poll! You ask for what people do. You have 11 choices but say you can only choose 10. Which one do you leave off if you have done them all? I guess people who do all these tasks can't vote!  It tells you there's an error. On who's part? :o

LOL. I agree my poll design has an error.

After I first released the poll, I pulled cleaning out of the gas and air pressure item, and made it a stand alone item in the poll.

The poll software (or I could not figure it out) would not allow me then to change the number of multi votes and I did not want to delete the poll and start over......

However, I believe this design error on my part should not deflect the major point of the poll. ---> Which is to define what service types the group does for themselves and for the group which service types may suggest someone write / publish more how - to - do articles in the forum.



Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Kazairl on July 07, 2011, 05:02:50 PM
This is a poorly designed poll! You ask for what people do. You have 11 choices but say you can only choose 10. Which one do you leave off if you have done them all? I guess people who do all these tasks can't vote!  It tells you there's an error. On who's part? :o

 If you vote for anything on the list except for the "clean" Then your hands are probably not clean are they? So therefore, It would be impossible to check all 11 because one pretty much cancels out the rest.  Capiche?
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Bob on July 07, 2011, 05:57:40 PM
If you vote for anything on the list except for the "clean" Then your hands are probably not clean are they? So therefore, It would be impossible to check all 11 because one pretty much cancels out the rest.  Capiche?

Actually, that's a great answer! Well done! ;D 
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: Kazairl on July 07, 2011, 08:59:20 PM
I have my moments. ;D
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: jjsC6 on July 08, 2011, 05:52:49 AM
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.
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: mkorn on July 08, 2011, 09:58:10 AM
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. 
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: CrashKLRtoConnie on July 08, 2011, 10:07:16 AM
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
Title: Re: How Dirty Do You Get Your Hands?
Post by: gflint on July 09, 2011, 01:34:23 PM
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.