The Hot Water Bottle Many years ago I reversed a loan car into a low bollard, putting a huge dent in the plastic rear bumper on a brand new car. I asked a pal who worked for a dent repair company how to fix it. Heat was the answer, a heat gun played on the dent, then laying on the ground, push the dent out from the back. Having seen the havoc an inexpertly applied heat gun can wreak on paint and plastic, I decided not to trust myself. Instead, I pressed a hot water bottle to the dent with a couple of towels wrapped round my hand, the dent popped straight out and I discovered that a hot water bottle is a useful workshop tool! Plenty of heat can be applied locally without risk to paint, plastics, or metal, excellent too for warming stickers that need to be removed, warming paint, etc.. etc.. What handy workshop tips do you have?
When you are trying to get two ends of a chain to come together so you can put the split link in, don't try to pull them together in the middle of the chain run. Lay the top half over the top section of the rear sprocket - it will stay there quite hapilly whilst you bring the lower half up to the bottom section of the sprocket and put the link in... OK, so I know most high-powered Ducati's have endless chains these days, but it's a good tip for older, less powerful or smaller bikes...
You can also use blackboard chalk too, available in all good toy shops and post offices. Less faff than paraffin................. If you want to bend aluminium you need to anneal it first, much much easier! Take a piece of bar soap, any will do, rub it on the metal and warm it through (small pieces can be done on the gas hob or larger in the oven) with a plumbers gas torch. When annealing temperature is reached the soap mark will turn black. Alloy age hardens so within a week or so it is almost as hard as it was...............
Great thread Borgo. Reminds me of 'Guinea Gimmicks' . My contribution: when removing the fuel injectors from their housing on 749/999's- and probably other models. If you position the tip of a large bladed, long screwdriver just under the body of the injector between the housing, and lever the injector upwards it will pop out of it's house easily.
Whenever you replace your cars windscreen wiper blades, before you throw them away, remove the long thin piece of steel from the rubber blade as it come in extremely useful for many things.
If you have a small unsightly dent in your car. I know there is an awful lot of plastic on modern cars but dents in metal parts can be miraculously disposed of by gently rubbing dry ice on them.safety equipment is required
If when in shed you find yourself getting horny a glory hole next to a goats paddock is probably not a good idea.
Melted rubber sole on chrome, or stainless steel, exhausts? Before using scratchy abrasives, try the concrete cleaning nozzle on the power washer
If and when you find yourself in the garage contemplating/needing to do something/anything to your bike, make sure you give the job and/or jobs to a professional/someone who knows what they are doing. You have not been charged for this advice.
Then moan about the cost......... ooh, any top tips on where i can get some cheap belts from for my testastretta.....
@ AndyB - Apparently they are the same as some kind of Renault diesel - but I can't remember which one... ( Not a very good tip this one, is it ? )
No probs,save yourself the whole cost of replacement.When belts are due just turn the old ones inside out.
Shame, a great thread descends into bollocks Simple one from me which I find really useful trackside; when changing front wheel, string hooped at either end, hook one end on the bar, take the other under the brake hose and back up to hook on the bar. Out the way and easier to work one edited as autocorrect struck again and wouldn't want to be pulled up again on my spelling
spelling was fine it was just the thesaurus said no.........:redface: I cant look at any thread that talks about top tips without thinking about Viz and their top tips.....
The worst top tips are from iffy women's mags like " Take a Break" from some old dear usually involves Pom poms and margarine tubs. I have not done any tinkering this year ... One I did remember is ACF5O Even though the spray can comes with a spray nozzle do NOT just spray your bike in it .. And a bit more for that just in case moment ... Purple puddles look pretty but that's about it .
My top tip is to buy quality tools, cheap stuff just isn't worth it. I've seen cheap sockets and spanners that have so much play once on a nut or bolt you look twice to see if it's the right size! I've got tools that have had loads of use over the last 20+ years and are still going strong.
