Being a mechanic is a whole other game, if your good. If I wasn't, I couldn't have re-built the 81 sx850sh. That came right off a scrap yard heap, and I traded a new process 4x4 transfer case for it even swap.
The ft wheel was so oil soaked and filthy from the tach drive cable I thought it was supposed to be solid black
But even with E-Bay it took a year to get better exhaust system.
The older dealer than the bike was assisted greatly in getting just about every rubber part there is.
I was able with time to get 3 new rubber intake manifild boots, since the ones I had from the junk yard were nearly gone. (3 carbs on a 3 banger Yammi triple cylinder bike) I got all new foot peg covers of rubber and a rear disk brake caliper stop rubber too, and ev en the shifter rubber was splitting, almost lost.
What I couldn't get I made work, or found another bike brand with similar enough parts to work, sometimes there were even better than stock, like that tach drive seal.
The first one was a yammi seal, total piece of junk and it didn't last. The next one I spent time matching up by OD and ID and that one has a inner seal coil spring to pull the seal lip tight to the shaft. That one was kick ass.
Another thing you need to know is almost every olderUJM bike has a weak connector between the alt and the rec/reg. A great deal of stators have been fried for that high resistance problem.
For reasons I don't know the Dealer fix was always to let the stator fry and bthe entire industry went along with that game and for no good reason. Stators don't have to die, the connectors need to be cut out and soldered.
I cound the soldering of these wires wasn't easy. There is a coating on the wire itself, not the insulation. I tried a lot of different fluxes, before I found one that worked and that was the pink tinning soultion from NAPA brand. Untill I discovered that no solder would stick to the wires.
The stators failing was about as common as having coffee at breakfast time. All I know is somebody really dropped the ball on that problem and the oversight was extraordinary.
Cutting out the connector is no big deal, all it does is let you pull the engine from the frame, and so you simply cut the wires and solder them back if you have to pull the engine from the frame. That's easy once you have flux that works.
Drops.... Well thar's 2 kinds of riders. Those who have dropped their bikes and those who will drop their bikes someday.
There is 2 other kinds of riders. There is bold riders, and there is old riders, but there is no old bold riders.
A very dangerous point tends to happen at around the end of the 1st year of riding. It is at about this point in time and experience where over confidence sets in. That idea does get people killed, or busted up so bad they live to wish they died. Don't do that.
There is a lot of new things to learn riding. One of the biggest is understanding you have just become invisable
A very hard skill to master is looking where you want to go. The eye tends to look at the up and coming next terror, and if you look at it you will go there. Don't do that either.
The next best advice I can give is after you get a bike, get the Clymers for it. So far as I know Clymers is the only aftermarket book out with in color wiring diagrams. I got one for my 850, and the dealer gave me a factory shop manual all stained from years of use for the xs850sg, which is the year before my bike and is almost identical. Just ask when you get parts at any dealers older than the bike you get.
Both books have errors..... Becarefull to get it right. The Clymers is based on a tear down, and if you don't know to stop in time and continue taking off parts before you get what ever it was fixed you will have a lot more parts to get.
That was a bit of a shock when I did the clutch. LOL I had that off and the book was getting deeper in the tear down, not going back together.
For now. last, once you get to work on the bike, use a ground cloth. Bikes have lots of tiny parts, and these tend to bounce, and then you can't find what it was, something that fell and you didn't even get a good look in the first place. If it lands on a old white bed sheet at least you get to ponder what in jumpin blue blazes it is and how it fits.
With out that tiny part who knows.....
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