Even if you are not really into working on your bike, every rider should know how to
do a few fundamental tasks.
Stick around we are going to show you a few tools we’ve found over the years that make
these basic tasks easier.
Hi, I’m Dave and welcome fellow Canyon Chasers!
Every rider should know how to check tire pressure, lube and adjust a chain, remove
a wheel and a few other basic skills.
Aside from the basic assortment of ratchets, wrenches, extensions and screwdrivers
here's a list of our favorite garage tools that make basic, day-to-day motorcycle maintenance easier.
And finally, most of the tools we’ll be telling you about are less than thirty bucks.
Oh look a hammer.
Wow.
Okay, yeah.
Its a hammer, but it’s a special hammer.
- I really wish I had my hammer.
- Hammer?
- It was quite unique. It was made from this special metal from the heart of a dying star.
Well, not that special.
It’s called a Loaded or Dead-Blow hammer, if you listen, you'll hear there's sand inside
the head of the hammer, and it’s made of soft, non-marring, material.
So when you tap on something with one of these, the material inside the head prevents the
head from bouncing, which prevents damage to soft surfaces and improves the striking force, so
you don’t have to hit things very hard.
This, one-pound, dead-blow hammer is one of the most used tools in the garage.
It allows you to tap on things without damaging the thing you are tapping on.
It’s perfect for motivating sticky axles, or anything that needs a little nudge to get moving.
They come in a wide range of sizes, but we’ve found the small one is the one that gets used
the most because you shouldn’t hit anything on your bike too hard.
The one we link to in the description is like, ten dollars.
Motorcycles not only use normal hex head bolts, but you’re likely to see lots of Allens,
or even Torx.
These stupid things are miserable.
But these allen sockets get used all the time, like on every single job.
Don’t buy a cheap set.
One thing you need to know when it comes to allens, the cheap ones will ruin or strip
your bolts, where the quality ones are far less likely to hurt them.
This Craftsman set, which is well over twenty years old, will run you about fifteen dollars.
You will want normal sockets and deep sockets.
If you are in the market be sure to buy the six point ones, not the twelve point ones.
Six point sockets will be far less likely to damage bolts.
I basically refuse to use twelve point sockets because they suck.
Bonus tip: chrome sockets are not for impact drivers!
If you need to run an impact gun, get the purpose built sockets for that job.
Sometimes it's a lot faster and easier just to grab a T-Handle.
They are ideal for lighter tasks, and that's where these babies come in.
A long arm for fast spins, and a short arm when you need more torque.
Just like with the sockets, don’t buy cheap, otherwise you’ll just ruin your fasteners.
This set from Klein is around thirty-five bucks, so you don’t have to break the bank.
You’ll be tempted to buy these with ball ends.
Ball ends are great for weird angles, but they are also a lot more likely to damage
the bolt, so if you are only buying one set that will be used all the time...
I’ll just say that my ball-end Allens rarely come out of the drawer,
but these guys hang on the wall.
So another tool that we just love is this sliding T-handle extension thing.
It basically turns any socket on an extension into a T-handle or a breaker bar, and if
you’ve never used T-handles, they’re great.
There are lots of sliding T-handles, but the nicer ones, like this one, have a detent
in the center so when you use it like a T-handle it remains a T instead of constantly
becoming an L. We love this thing so much we end up using it more than a ratchet.
This guy is currently listed at thirteen dollars.
But if the sliding thing is more complexity than you want in your life, Motion Pro also
makes this awesome fixed T-handle and it’s a few bucks cheaper.
Next we have the Motion Pro air chuck.
So how is this different from one of these or one of these.
Well, it is...
Well, it is.
This air chuck is amazing!
This top part rotates so you can get it into tight places, like, you know, behind your brake rotors.
Plus the way it seals around the valve is better than any other air chuck we’ve ever used.
I know, I know, it’s an air chuck, it’s a thirty-dollar air chuck, but when I told
all the other Canyon Chaser team members, they didn’t believe me either.
But now, you’ll find one of these guys in every one of our toolboxes.
It’s that good.
But you’re like, but I don’t have an air compressor.
That’s another item that will just make your life easier.
You don’t need to have a big giant tank thing like this, you can get a little pancake
air compressor for as little as sixty to a hundred dollars.
Air up your tires before you head out for a ride, change grips in a snap, it also opens
the world of air tools like impact drivers.
Trust me, you want an air compressor.
And now that you have an air compressor, there’s no excuse for you to neglect your tire pressure.
You need a quality tire gauge.
How your bike behaves and how long your tires last is largely dependant upon your tire pressure.
You need to stay on top of your tire pressure at all times.
These suck,
these are a joke,
pretty much any old crappy tire pressure gauge isn’t worth the effort.
We love this one from Intercomp.
We’ve tested it against gauges costing three and four times as much and it’s pretty much
spot-on.
It’s analog, so no batteries to worry about, but its filled with liquid, making the
gauge more accurate as humidity and moisture changes can make a gauge less reliable.
It also helps dampen vibrations in case you drop or bump your gauge, which you should
never, ever do if you want it to remain accurate.
You need to have blue thread lock (sometimes called loctite) and anti-seize,
on hand, all the time.
Thread lock is amazing for preventing lost bolts and comes in different colors.
Red is forever, but the blue is best for almost everything else.
I love the stuff that works like chapstick.
Just roll the tip of the bolt into the end and no muss no fuss.
Anti-seize keeps threads from getting stuck.
And I use it all over the place, cables, spark plugs, axle bolts… anything I want to come
apart again.
It comes in a few flavors, the most common are copper or aluminum.
Copper is for higher temperature applications, aluminum, or silver, is what you’ll use the most.
Anti-Seize is the messiest stuff in the world, so to keep things clean, again, we love the
Chapstick style like this.
So how tight should you make a bolt?
Well, you really should have a torque wrench, but...
Use a little bit of thread lock, gently seat the bolt, then turn it about 1/8th of turn.
If you aren’t very comfortable with that, and you kinda shouldn’t be, then buy a decent
torque wrench.
You can find the torque specifications for your bike online and in forums, but a service
manual is the best resource.
Most people make bolts way, way, waaaay too tight.
So the previous owner of your bike didn’t have a torque wrench and used the force of
god on every bolt they touched or maybe you are working on an older bike…
A lot of older Japanese bikes just have phillips screws on a lot of fasteners, making
them extremely hard to remove.
If you ever have a problem with stuck screws and bolts then it’s good to have
an Impact Screwdriver on hand.
So these little guys, when you hit them, they have this spring tension ratchet thing that
turns, but if the bolt is really stuck, it’ll purposely slip so as not to strip the head.
So the force of the impact keeps the head in place, the vibration of the impact helps
break the threads free, and then the rotational forces encourage the bolt to turn.
This tool doesn’t get used a whole lot, but when it’s needed it’s amazing.
And they are typically less than thirty-dollars.
Cleaning and lubing your chain can be a dirty chore.
We have an entire video dedicated to the process, but in that video we talk about this little
guy with a goofy name.
The Grease Ninja.
By the way, this is the only thing we’re talking about today that was given to us,
but we’ve since purchased many more because it’s kinda' awesome.
One of the problems with lubing your chain is that it’s easy to get overspray all over
your tire, your wheel, actually miss getting the lube onto the o-rings, or over-lube your
chain, which is actually a bad thing.
But this little guy sits on top of the chain and directs the chain lube directly over the
o-rings, providing lubrication right where you need it most, providing the best lubrication
between the chain and sprockets and protecting the o-rings from damaging UV rays and whatnot.
They come in a few sizes depending on your specific chain and will set you back
a mere 15 dollars.
“Enhancements” to the modern gas can has made them a horrible thing for motorcycles.
Vent-free spouts mean that all you really end up doing is spilling gas all over your
tank and soaking your hands in fuel.
However, you can still get these “utility" jugs from companies like V.P. Fuel
The challenge with these has always been the spout is difficult to manage when you are
fueling your bike by yourself, but Stroker Industries solved that with their “utility
jug valve and hose.”
These things are brilliant.
Get the “utility jug” into position, and depress the button to open the valve and allow
the liquid to flow.
We have put links to each of these in the description below and all of them,
and all of them, with the exception of the Grease Ninja, we purchased our own.
In other words, nobody has payed us to say anything in this video.
If you have any tools that you use that have made motorcycle maintenance better for you,
please share them in the comments, and if you’d like us to cover any basic motorcycle
task in its own video, let us know, also, in the comments.
Thank you so much for watching and ride well.