How To Repair Your Motorcycle

It's not exactly recreational reading. But when your preferred mode of recreation suddenly refuses to start, How To Repair Your Motorcycle becomes exactly that. Written by Motor-cyclist magazine alumnus Charles Everitt as part of the Motorbooks Workshop Series, it takes the fear and loathing out of motorcycle maintenance for those of us who don't turn wrenches for a living-and aren't too keen on writing big checks to those who do.

Calling on his experience as a professional wrench and a quarter-century at every motorcycle magazine worth the paper it was printed on, Everitt walks you through the basics of setting up shop, followed by 50 projects the typical suburban crew chief always wanted to try but didn't know who to ask. All the basic tasks are here -oil change, battery care and how to clean/replace an air filter-along with more ambitious chores such as adjusting intake and exhaust valves. Explanations are simple, complete and well written in the sort of language anyone who can spell "mechanical aptitude" can understand.

Vital information is boxed and labeled with appropriate icons-easier to find when you're underneath an '86 VFR-along with tasty factoids that make you sound smarter than Dexter T. Ford. Honda started stamping steel in 1949 for Dream D frames because it's cheap and easy. Everitt adds one more reason: Good steel tube stock was scarce back then. See? You're smarter already. How To Repair Your Motorcycle is the perfect bridge between the owner's manual that came with your bike and the shop manual that hopefully arrived some time later. It's no substitute for either, but makes both much more useful to the aspiring amateur mechanic. Two greasy thumbs up.

How to Repair Your Motorcycle
Price: $21.95
Contact: Motorbooks
www.motorbooks.com

Verdict 4 stars out of 5
Motorcycle mechanics for the masses