Do you work on your own bike? Especially the routine maintenance that gives you time checking your bike and a feeling of accomplishment when you are finished with the task?
I do, and normally enjoy it and find it a good opportunity to check things out, spend some time doing mechanical things which is quite different than my normal day, and have that confidence that while I can't repair complex parts of the bike, I can take care of routine items myself.
The frustration comes when a project should be simple, but turns out to be overly complex or messy. One great example is changing the oil on a Harley-Davidson. Everything is pretty much right there out in the open. One hallmark of the Harley twin-v design is the oil filter placement forward of the front cylinder-looks good, works like a bit of an oil cooler, and makes accessing the filter for oil changes straightforward. Put an end cap filter wrench on, rachet drive with an extension and off it spins.
That's where things go wrong. About half a turn in and oil starts leaking out from the engine case all over the lower portion of the engine. I had tried all kinds of "solutions" on multiple twins-newspaper, cut up 2-liter "coke" bottles, tin foil. All worked to some degree, but all were also messy or a lot of effort for a simple job.
Then a friend let me borrow his oil change funnel kit. Available from a variety of manufacturers, these are purpose molded funnels that solve this problem, and the primary case fill problem too. A hard plastic funnel slides under the filter, has a drain and small rubber tubing to take oil right to your drain pan. A really good set is available on Amazon
here, and for full disclosure (thank you nanny state) I am an Amazon Associate and get a few pennies if you buy from that link.
This is a simple tool, many companies offer a variety of them for less than $20, and the simplicity of doing oil changes with it is very welcome. I'll feature another simple but elegantly time-saving tool soon. Thank you for reading!
