Mechanical Knowledge

I've been lurking here for a while and am pretty humbled by the knowledge most seem to possess. I bought an '08 SD in March and love it, but must admit, riding it is about the only thing I'm good at. It seems there is no mod or problem too big for most people here. Are y'all mechanics during the day? I mean, just reading about how to install a Motohooligan airbox makes me scratch my head. Have you read books to gain this knowledge? Have you just been working on bikes for 30 years? Once I start taking things off the SD I get so worried I'm going to fook something up that I just put it back together and take it to the mechanic. Am I the only one who doesn't know what the hell he's doing and wonders where to learn? Hell, I put the 02 eliminators on, and it was simple enough, but trying to bolt the tank back down made the whole process so thoroughly unenjoyable that now I'm scared to even tank the tank bolt off again!

No its not you.......the tank can be a complete ass to put back on.....some where on the forum there is a How to do it for most things.....

Don't panic!

Us old fookers all rode bikes when they broke down a lot so we had little choice but to get familiar with their guts. My guess is that as they have become increasinglt reliable less and less people learn the skills early and so find themselves in exactly the same situation as you.

Most of the blingy bits are easy to change, one bolt at a time till you get there and then reverse to put it back together again. Fiddly jobs like the tank remain fiddly regardless of how many hours spanner time you have!

If you are not comfortable doing it and cant get anybody who is to assist then paying somebody to do it is a perfectly honorable way to go. If I had one bit of advice for doing something like the MH airbox it would be to leave plenty of time and try and do the whole job uninterupted in a single session. Once you get into it a leads to b and then c in understandable small steps. If you are interupted or have to come back and pick up half way through it can be dificult to get into it again from my experience.

I'm so knackered or otherwise engaged these days I cant even raise the enthusiasm to do the simple servicing stuff myself!

Mate, I put together a step-by-step guide to fitting the Motobox, like a Haynes manual, just because I wanted people like yourself to be confident enough to have a go. Down load it from the Motohooligan site or from the thread here in the stickies.

Like has been mentioned, if you're older you had to learn to strip bikes down all the time because they went wrong all the time! But nowadays you have to find a good excuse to do this because there's otherwise little need. Part of the fun in owning a bike, IMO, is to end up knowing how it all fits together and you just need to get stuck in. Having the right tools and a place to work helps. My advice is to either write down or photograph every step you take, label all the bits with a bit of masking tape if you think you'll not finish on the same day. It's amazing how many bolts and fixings and components might end up looking unidentifiable a week later. What Haynes manuals taught me, back in the day, was that when you take apart - you put together in exactly the reverse order. You can't go wrong.

Main thing with bikes is that nearly every component is necessary and mechanically understandable. You take it off, figure out how it works and what it does, put it aside and move on. Bikes are just bits of engineering designed to do a job. They are really pretty basic bits of kit, doesn't matter how flash they look from the outside, nearly every bike is the same as another and they are all based on the same principles.

Electronics is another story. I'm too old for this. Electronics baffle me.

Have fun.

A good place to start is the workshop manual, exploded parts diagrams, getting some basic knowledge and understanding of how a motorcycle and it's systems work, proper tools, and a place to work. Try to know what you're going to need to avoid down time waiting for parts or having to run around for them. A clean place to work and keep things organized, identified, and clean helps loads.
You will feel more comfortable going in knowing what to expect and how to go about what you want to do.

Read the posts in the technical section and use the search. Just about anything you want to do on your Superduke has been done before and someone has probably done a post on it in the How-to section.

Most often in my early days I had none of the above and had to learn the hard way. There were screw-ups but nothing catastrophic, but keep in mind I paid hundreds of dollars for the bikes not thousands. I started wrenching on my own vehicles out of necessity. My old bikes cost almost nothing to buy but required constant attention to keep on the road. Through the years newer bikes were better but satisfaction in knowing the job is done right means almost all is done at home. I am a machinery set-up man/operator/programmer and was a "marine engineer/mechanic"- Stoker in the Navy.

I find that it's all basically the same.Systems and parts and knowledge and understanding. Some are good at these things and not at others. You can learn if you want to, but keep in mind it's your machine and you will pay if it goes wrong. There is nothing wrong in paying someone who knows what they're doing to get the job done if you're not cut-out for wrenching.

Basically repeating what others have already stated.

A small cheap digital camera can come in handy when your are taking things apart for the first time.Cheers.