Kowledgable repair techs that are not careful with nice bikes...

[mharrington]

I know a bike repair guy that knows almost everything. hes good.Not cheap but cheaper than a dealer. Hes been repairing bikes snowmobiles since 1974. I restored a 78 GS1000 and its a beautiful stunning bike. I am proud of the end result. But it needed things I just never done so we took it to him to sync crbs and trouble shoot a misfire. After getting it back home and in better than new running condition I noticed the beautiful tank was damaged thru the paint and primer down to the metal at two front spots. When he removed the tank her lifted the rear so high and hard the front of the tank hit part of the triple tree- or the nuts in that area. He made it right but when presented with the damage I could see he was really surprised he damaged it. Many techs are just not accustomed to being very very careful.

[gsrick]

I know a bike repair guy that knows almost everything. hes good.Not cheap but cheaper than a dealer. Hes been repairing bikes snowmobiles since 1974. I restored a 78 GS1000 and its a beautiful stunning bike. I am proud of the end result. But it needed things I just never done so we took it to him to sync crbs and trouble shoot a misfire. After getting it back home and in better than new running condition I noticed the beautiful tank was damaged thru the paint and primer down to the metal at two front spots. When he removed the tank her lifted the rear so high and hard the front of the tank hit part of the triple tree- or the nuts in that area. He made it right but when presented with the damage I could see he was really surprised he damaged it. Many techs are just not accustomed to being very very careful.

Accidents happen and some of those tank cushions make it real hard to put on and take off. I can see how it could happen.

[bwringer]

Whenever I work on a nicely restored or preserved older bike, I have the owner remove the tank and side covers before I dig in.

Way too many of these have beautiful shiny paint, but no one's replaced the stiff and shrunken rubbers and grommets, and/or the mounting pegs and hardware are broken, missing, or misused. Not worth taking a risk.



I can sort of see how and why it happened -- on some bikes you can barely lift the back of the tank much at all to reach the vacuum and fuel lines before it hits something -- but then again someone with experience should have known about this sort of thing and been paying better attention.

[mharrington]

Many mechanics work on beat up quads and dirtbikes where carefulness is is not important. Like I said he made it right- but I had alot of time invested in the prep on that bike and the body man layed down the base and color like glass.