Saturday, December 30, 2006

Goldwing Repair

Our successful excursion into the bowels of Goldwing wiring has my Wing up and running. I'd get on it tomorrow and drive anywhere in the country, yet motorcycles are designed for tinkering and mine needs a couple of things.

Like an oil change. That isn't much of a problem, as Wix makes filters for it. I have a filter and seven quarts of oil on the workbench. (No, the Wing doesn't take seven quarts. That's what I have on hand.) The very first thing you do when you change a Wing's oil is to remove the lower cowling. Three screws (5X14, Honda Part #93891-05014-07). These things are easily lost. I need a couple for replacements. Two of mine have vibrated loose over the last ten years and fallen to the road. I need a couple for replacements. The guys over at Honda Direct list them for $2.50 each.

Two frigging dollars and fifty cents each for a screw? You have got to be kidding me. These are machine screws I'm talking about. Not some gold-plated titanium aircraft part. These things hold a piece of plastic to a piece of metal. They ought to be $2.50 for a box of ten. Hell, I just went and bought three big honking lag bolts and paid 11 cents apiece for them. I'm not about to pay $2.50 for a machine screw that is going to vibrate out and fall on the road.

Somebody makes these screws. I've just got to find them. I guess I'll take the one remaining one I have and hie myself over to Fastenal next week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://mscdirect.com/

or

http://www.mcmaster.com/

with either of these places, I'd call in the order and see what shipping costs. These places specialize in getting your stuff to you fast, usually overnight, usually with entirely too much packaging. (I've had five feet of plastic tubing come shipped in a 1x1x1 foot box, packed full of shipping peanuts.

See if you can do a "will call" too.

Metric bots are measured by the major diameter of the threads, not the head size. So a M5-0.8 15 would have a thread size of 5 mm, a thread spacing of 0.8 mm, and a length, measured below the head of 15 mm.

You probably know this, but there's usually a grade marking on the bolt head.

Also, blue loctite.

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. I really hate Loewer Power Sports for "bending me over the counter" everytime I go there for a part for my ZR-7S.

The Termite