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I'd also recommend trying top make friends with someone who is already doing it (at a level high enough beyond you that you'll learn useful stuff from them). C

I'd also recommend trying top make friends with someone who is already doing it (at a level high enough beyond you that you'll learn useful stuff from them). Car/motorcycle/bike maintenance - it's always better to have someone who has a fair bit more experience than you sitting in your shed drinking your beer and eating your pizza while you do your own work.

brudgers 6y ago
I learned how to adjust caliper brakes watching a bike mechanic swap out my front cable in about 90 seconds. I saw it was entirely a matter of feel and visualization.
- bigiain 6y ago
  > I saw it was entirely a matter of feel Depends, I guess, on where you're starting from. Some people know how hard you should/shouldn't push on a 10mm spanner or a 6mm allen key. That kind of "matter of feel" comes from someone who's already got it showing you and letting you feel it, or from a trail of stripped bolts and/or crashes where your brakes failed or fell off 'cause you didn't torque them up tight enough... In person expertise is not essential, but I do think launching into repairing your own brakes is perhaps the _worst_ example of something you should learn from Youtube... (Although adjusting bicycle brake cables is not nearly as bad an example as, say, removing callipers and swapping out brake pads on a motorcycle...) If you can find someone to help teach you, it's well worth the pizza and beer it usually costs...
  - brudgers 6y ago
    I suspect you haven't replaced CV joints using a Chilton's Manual. Bicycles are easy. They don't require force or working overhead in a tight space next to a hot shop light, and don't leak fluids into puddles with your face in between. They're not scary except in the sense that someone doesn't have expertise. There's nothing there that can't be done right by trial and error and mechanical reasoning. It just takes putting it together wrong and taking it apart a few times until its right. Anyone can overhaul a bike in four days.
    - bigiain 6y ago
      Uhhh, yeah I have. More often using Haines Manual. But I've done CVs on 69 and 72 Beetles, a bunch of early 70s Leyland Mini race cars, two different late 80s Suzuki Swifts, late 90s Ford Laser, and Alfa Romeo Sud and a Sprint, and a 2005-ish RAV4. I've also totally stripped and rebuilt several VW Beetle motors (and a Kombi one), a 13B Mazda rotary (which ended up in the 72 Beetle eventually), and my Ducati Monster 900 (engine/gearbox). I own one motorcycle that needs a new top end rebuild every 10,000km (A Cagiva Mito 125cc two stroke). I've done the desmo valve clearances on that Ducati every 20,000km since 1999 (it's got over 320,000km on it now.) So I'm not particularly scared of most mechanical things (I'm more put off by the pains of a 50year old body crouching down next to a motorcycle in the cold these days than worried about working on the mechanical stuff...) But I _am_ acutely aware that many (most?) people didn't have fathers who taught them how to work on cars/lawnmowers when they were 7 or 8 years old, and have no clue at all how tight fasteners should be or much force you can put on them before starting to worry about whether you need to start checking if you've missed the lock nut or split pin. People who have no feel for whats "About right" for a 10mm fastener compared to a 17mm or 32mm one. People who don't read a torque spec of 10Nm for an M6 fastener and realise "Oooh, that's not very tight, must be a stainless fastener into a soft-ish allow..." I _strongly_ stand by my advice of making a more experienced friend and having them oversee things and be there for when you're not sure if you're doing things right.
      - twic 6y ago
        But did you win the Putnam?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - strogonoff 6y ago
        I am now unfortunately in a location where it is non-trivial to befriend a person to shadow like that (language barrier etc.), but thanks for thoughtful advice. Pizza/beer point noted!

brudgers 6y ago

I learned how to adjust caliper brakes watching a bike mechanic swap out my front cable in about 90 seconds. I saw it was entirely a matter of feel and visualization.

bigiain 6y ago
> I saw it was entirely a matter of feel Depends, I guess, on where you're starting from. Some people know how hard you should/shouldn't push on a 10mm spanner or a 6mm allen key. That kind of "matter of feel" comes from someone who's already got it showing you and letting you feel it, or from a trail of stripped bolts and/or crashes where your brakes failed or fell off 'cause you didn't torque them up tight enough... In person expertise is not essential, but I do think launching into repairing your own brakes is perhaps the _worst_ example of something you should learn from Youtube... (Although adjusting bicycle brake cables is not nearly as bad an example as, say, removing callipers and swapping out brake pads on a motorcycle...) If you can find someone to help teach you, it's well worth the pizza and beer it usually costs...
- brudgers 6y ago
  I suspect you haven't replaced CV joints using a Chilton's Manual. Bicycles are easy. They don't require force or working overhead in a tight space next to a hot shop light, and don't leak fluids into puddles with your face in between. They're not scary except in the sense that someone doesn't have expertise. There's nothing there that can't be done right by trial and error and mechanical reasoning. It just takes putting it together wrong and taking it apart a few times until its right. Anyone can overhaul a bike in four days.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    Uhhh, yeah I have. More often using Haines Manual. But I've done CVs on 69 and 72 Beetles, a bunch of early 70s Leyland Mini race cars, two different late 80s Suzuki Swifts, late 90s Ford Laser, and Alfa Romeo Sud and a Sprint, and a 2005-ish RAV4. I've also totally stripped and rebuilt several VW Beetle motors (and a Kombi one), a 13B Mazda rotary (which ended up in the 72 Beetle eventually), and my Ducati Monster 900 (engine/gearbox). I own one motorcycle that needs a new top end rebuild every 10,000km (A Cagiva Mito 125cc two stroke). I've done the desmo valve clearances on that Ducati every 20,000km since 1999 (it's got over 320,000km on it now.) So I'm not particularly scared of most mechanical things (I'm more put off by the pains of a 50year old body crouching down next to a motorcycle in the cold these days than worried about working on the mechanical stuff...) But I _am_ acutely aware that many (most?) people didn't have fathers who taught them how to work on cars/lawnmowers when they were 7 or 8 years old, and have no clue at all how tight fasteners should be or much force you can put on them before starting to worry about whether you need to start checking if you've missed the lock nut or split pin. People who have no feel for whats "About right" for a 10mm fastener compared to a 17mm or 32mm one. People who don't read a torque spec of 10Nm for an M6 fastener and realise "Oooh, that's not very tight, must be a stainless fastener into a soft-ish allow..." I _strongly_ stand by my advice of making a more experienced friend and having them oversee things and be there for when you're not sure if you're doing things right.
    - twic 6y ago
      But did you win the Putnam?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      I am now unfortunately in a location where it is non-trivial to befriend a person to shadow like that (language barrier etc.), but thanks for thoughtful advice. Pizza/beer point noted!