Course 3....almost done!

I didn't get a chance to post last weekend as it was my birthday and work decided it was gonna tack on a few hours as a present! Sorry about that.

Course 3 has been running fairly smoothly. I've reconditioned some valve seats, bored a cylinder and honed it, cooked a head and popped out the valve guides and replaced em, pushed out another set of valve guides with a press, taken apart 2 crank shafts and trued them and got to do a few bolt extractions which was cake walk work.

The cylinder boring and valve seat reconditioning was the hardest part but mostly, I think, due to the fact that these are "training aids" as the school likes to call them. I call them motorcycle parts that are FUBAR. I spent 2 hours just trying to get the cylinder back in round so I could begin trying to make a smooth cut on it. The valve seats..well lets just say...umm..let's not say. It took me all night to get one straightened out and done. I'm no professional at this stuff by any means and I'm sure a pro could have done them both in an hour or so but I suppose it was a good learning experience. The instructor told me at one point "this is good so you can recognize it out in the field". My reponse to that was "if I see this out in the field I'm gonna take their bike away from them".

I've enjoyed getting my hands dirty and we've certainly done that in this class. I know the fun is just getting started though. The next step for us is the Basic Electronics class or Course 4. I'm really looking forward to this one. I have gotten my feet wet in electronics before. Not so much on motorcycles but through home theaters and such. Electronics are electronics or so I think. I'm sure there will be some surprises awaiting me and I look for a challenge in it. I hope there's one there. I do know that there are more and more electronics popping up on bikes every model year and if you're good at diagnosing and fixing a problem with it you'll be in demand. One thing I'm not looking forward to is seeing someone do the ol "cut and splice with electrical tape" method of repairing something. I know i'll see someone do it and I might have to slap em in the back of the head because i've had to troubleshoot and repair some wires like that before and it's not fun. All that fun isn't till next week though.

Friday night is our final exam for Course 3. I have all my projects already turned in and have gotten perfect scores on them all. This instructor is really helpful with them and doesn't rule with an iron fist when it comes to scoring them. You really have to try to get a minor, points off if you remember, and you practically have to drop something on his foot or break something to get a major, a lot of points off. His attitude has been "I didn't hire you to bore cylinders...etc. You're here to learn and if you learn then you're doing what you're here to do. If not then you lose points" He goes off in weird directions in coversations some times but overall he's a good guy.

I'll try to get a post in by Sunday, if not Friday night and let you know what my final exam score is. Until then........