Repair Services
If your bike does not run, or it runs but you can’t ride it, then your bike is in need of repairs.
The most common repair I perform is a basic carburetor cleaning
Along with installing a new battery; however, if you keep your bike on a battery tender when it’s not in use, you won’t have to buy batteries as often as riders who don’t keep their batteries charged. Battery installation is included with the battery along with a charging system check.
All appointments include a visual check including checking oil/fluid levels, tire condition/pressure, adding air if necessary, and assessing the overall condition of your machine.
Carburetors need to be cleaned after they sit for a period of time. What happens is the ethanol that’s mixed with the gasoline turns into a gelatinous mess inside your carburetor’s float bowl. This plugs up the tiny holes in the carburetor that dispense fuel to the engine. These holes must be cleaned out before the bike will run again.
Other common repairs include removing and replacing malfunctioning electrical components, like your stator and/or rectifier-regulator (bike doesn’t charge), CDI box (bike doesn’t spark), or your battery (bike won’t start).
There are as many different types of repairs as there are types of motorcycles and components.
Scooter Repair
Scooter riders often experience a whole host of issues associated with bikes of Chinese origin, including poor construction and non-existent maintenance. Many Japanese and European scooters are built like tanks and just keep going and going, until they don’t anymore.
When a repair is required because of poor maintenance, repair costs can quickly outstrip the purchase price of the machine itself.
The BALLPARK price for cleaning a SCOOTER carb and installing a new battery is ~$255 +/- ALL IN (diag, repair, service call, supplies, parts) for a scooter that RAN WELL LAST YEAR, but final pricing varies up or down depending on your machine and what exactly needs to be done to it to make it run and operated well again.
Dirt Bike & ATV Repair
Dirt riders often experience bent handlebars, broken levers, crushed radiators, mangled subframes, grenaded engines, blown fork seals, and overlooked maintenance.
I specialize in trail bikes and dual sport bikes; if you have a “competition style” motocross or enduro bike, I recommend getting in touch with Christian Kovach at Freedom Golf Carts & Motorsports. Ask for him by name and tell him that I sent you.
Street Bike: Metric Cruiser and Sportbike Repair
Sportbike riders often experience broken side covers from tip-overs, smoked clutches, brakes that haven’t been touched since the bike was new, and engines that make strange and mysterious noises for no apparent reason.
I specialize in carbureted street bikes, metric cruisers like the Honda Shadow, Yamaha V-Star, Kawasaki Vulcan, and Suzuki Intruder AS WELL AS carbureted sportbikes like the Honda CBR, Yamaha YZF, Suzuki GSXR, and Kawasaki Ninja type bikes.
I also have extensive experience working on “UJM” type bikes, which stands for Universal Japanese Motorcycle AKA the CB, XS, GS, and KZ series of early Japanese street bikes made from the late 60s up to the early 90s and beyond.
Carbureted Honda and Yamaha bikes with V4 type engines, cruisers and sport bikes, are another one of my specialties. This includes Honda Magnas, Honda Interceptors, and the Yamaha V-Max.
ALL work involving the REPAIR of a SPORT BIKE must include AT LEAST 30 minutes of diagnostic time for me to get a handle on what it will take to make your bike run/ride well again. Many of these bikes are beaten, abused, and neglected to within a millimeter of their lives before they stop working and often aren’t worth repairing. It will cost you my minimum to find out what it will take and whether I think it’s worth it to contact another shop if something about your sport bike or its location prevents me from repairing it on a mobile basis.
If you own a later model bike equipped with electronic fuel injection (EFI) that does not currently run, I recommend getting in contact with Imperial Sportbikes or TFOG Motorsports.
More about scooter, ATV, and motorcycle repair
Repairs are often necessary after a bike sits for a long time. Parts break on perfectly maintained bikes that are used often as well. When the bike is well maintained and used often, parts tend to break in ways that are easier to deduce and discern. This is simply not true for bikes that have been sitting outside in the weather or for bikes that have been repeatedly taken apart and put back together again by less than scrupulous amateur mechanics.
As you can see, poor maintenance is a source of much frustration among riders. One way to prevent your bike from needing frequent repairs is to keep it well maintained; however, maintenance is not a guarantee that your bike will not break in the future and require repairs.
Easy problems vs. more complex issues
Many riders are under the impression that there’s “something stupid” going on with their bike that they can’t see, that can be cheaply and easily fixed by a competent mechanic.
Sometimes this is the case.
Sometimes it’s not.
The reason your scooter or motorcycle doesn’t run as well as it used to could be something as simple as a worn spark plug. It could also be something like worn piston rings.
A worn spark plug is quick, easy, and inexpensive to address. Spark plugs are a regular maintenance item that should be replaced frequently.
Wear on piston rings and cylinder walls could be an expensive nightmare to repair, depending on the bike. Pistons and rings are a maintenance item on many bikes; however, they tend to last a lot longer than spark plugs.
There are many, many other reasons your bike could be running poorly. Maintenance could be a part of that, but I’m not willing to bet that it’s the whole story without seeing the bike first.
Diagnosing the underlying issue
If your bike is difficult to start or runs poorly, I insist on diagnosing and repairing the underlying issue before performing any maintenance work.
All machines, including and especially motorcycles and scooters, eventually break, even those that are fastidiously maintained by meticulous owners and mechanics.
For more information on the services I offer, click one of these links: