Why I am not a mechanic:
So I get a new oil pressure switch for the 750 after waiting over 3 weeks for it to come from Silvers via airmail – clearly they still fly sopwith camels, or it was shot down over Libya and continued the journey in a tank or a boogy board bag. The old one was leaking like a sieve.
I go out to the shed with the intention of replacing it. Life is good.
The nut on the top that holds the wire on is 7mm, and that has to come off before you can turn the whole switch body.
I haven’t got a 7mm ring/open spanner.
I go to the auto shop – neither have they, ffs, so I end up buying a cheap set of spanners that included 6 and 7, which I had neither of but might come in handy one day when I attempt to build a small remote controlled aircraft to take up the UK to Aus mail run .
I get back home and after fiddling with the hard plastic cover thingy (that covers the top of the switch and the wires) to get it out of the way (requiring the removal of the starter motor cover) I finally get a spanner onto the nut in a tight squeeze, and start turning, feeling pretty good about things. This won’t take a minute.
Then I notice the whole internal body of the switch (ie the internal plastic bit) is turning with the nut (which is probaly why it's leaking), and no amount of effort from me with the pliers to hold that bit while I turn the nut makes any difference, cos I only have 2 hands, bigger than a little Jap’s, and I am becoming more uncoordinated and disyxlec with age
.
So then I think, ok, I’ll attempt to undo the entire body and worry about the little nut after (which was never going to work cos the wires would prevent me from getting even one full turn anyway, but by this stage I was losing all sense of reason, my knees were aching and I was losing it).
So then I discover that I haven’t got an open spanner that will fit, or a shifter that would fit into the gap, to undo that anyway, and of course I can’t get a ringy or a socket over it cos the f*****g wires are still on it.
I think one spanner is now at the bottom of the lake opposite my house.
So I put another piece of rag up into the wire cover to soak up the leaking oil, put the starter motor cover back on, put all my useless tools away, and pushed the bike back into the shed and said f**k it.
This is why I am not a mechanic.
I will now take the bike and the new switch to the bike shop and say “please fix”. I pay. Life will be good again.
