How irritating are oil leaks? Even a small oil leak can be disproportionately annoying. Motorcycles can and will leak oil; it's often what some of them do best. In an ideal world it wouldn't happen but age, wear and tear, overuse, inactivity and abuse often take their collective toll. Some motorcycles leak oil because of inherent design faults, poor quality components or insufficient gasket faces but in general the vast majority of the modern motorcycles available in Thailand don't tend to fall into this category.

If we talking about motorcycles that are famous for leaking oil we often directly refer to British, German and Indian made motorcycles, and for the budget motorcycle most Thai motorcyclists have not much good to say about Chinese motorcycles if it comes to oil leaking... Japanese motorcycles, despite what you might hear and read elsewhere, can and does leak oil...

The good news is that generally the fixes are relatively simple and straightforward. The supply of parts for even older motorcycles is surprisingly good and we found it simple and easy to obtain a seal for every leak we ever identified.

To be honest, I'm not a good mechanic, my dad was, but that was a long time ago. In spite of that I have the creme dela creme of Thai automotive mechanics working for me... and I often make an interpretation of what really happens in our company... The thing is that I've never father engines that were coveted for their enduring success, while that is what we now many produce, enignes that will last a whole racing season..

Our engine building style/technique could be called a triumph of all modification wishful thinking and talent. For all to make this clear we have to go back about 20-years, and keep an open mind.

My dad was a engine engineer who was involved in the design and the development of fastest 50cc motorcycle in his age, not let the engine size foul you, as the speed record was around 225km/h and well within the acceleration of a modern twin cylinder 650cc... but that is all history...

About 45 years ago, manufacturers were making predictions about how much longer the spoked motorcycle wheel would be with us in the face of the advent of the alloy-cast wheel. I think it's fair to say that they all got it wrong... because spoked wheels are still here.

Part of the argument against spoked wheels was that they're high maintenance compared to their alloy-cast wheel equivalent, but sometimes the fact that you can maintain the wheel and not simply throw it away because it's bent is a big advantage – which is why off-road and most adventure motorcycles have spoked wheels.

I've never laced a wheel up myself because I've always known at least one person that would do it for me. But, like wiring a motorcycle, once you've got your head round it, acquired a few tools, and sourced the stuff you need, it's less aggravation than you'd think, which is fairly obvious given that spoked wheels are mass-produced.

From a adventure bike building point of view, the advantage of spoked wheels is that you can lace the rime size to another rim size. Changing the rim size is, however, a little ambitious for a first attempt; the rim needs to be drilled to suit the hub, spoke lengths need to be worked out, and so on. Bearing that in mind, speak to your wheel builder before cutting the hub out of a wheel you want to modify so that they can make a note of the spoke pattern, whether or not the rim is centered on the hub, and anything else they need to know. Then you can paint, polish, or powdercoat your hub to your heart's desire before having it laced to a new rim.

If the horns on your motorcycle are like most blasters installed on modern motorcycles now-a-day, changes are that you not impress the average car when you hit the horn button. While the main culprit might be the horn themselves, a contributing factor to poor horn performance is often the simple fact that with some older motorcycles the horns are activated and powered by the horn button instead of being wired through a relay, as is common on most motorcycles you find currently in the dealer showrooms.

The problem is that switches – especially on some older motorcycle models – can be poor conduits for voltage. That's because they typically involve a pair of contact faces that wear against each other every time the switch is activated producing residue and attracting grime that diminishes the contact area and reduce the voltage passing through the switch. It's not at all unusual to discover that a powered switch with 12 volt fed into it only letting 9 or 10 volts through.

That kind of voltage drop is bad and can damage circuits, and it certainly doesn't encourage optimum performance in critical components like horns, lights and ignition systems.

Taking care of your motorcycle, like most things, takes time and effort. However, with what you spent on the purchase, I’m sure you’d agree it’s worth it. Here are five ways to maintain your motorcycle for optimum performance.

Clean your motorcycle

Owners take pride in their investment, and it shows by the condition in which they keep their motorbike. A grimy bike will depreciate in value more quickly than a clean one. To keep your bike in pristine condition, consider investing in a degreaser, cleaning agent, and pressure washer. Industrial strength cleaning agents penetrate the grime and crud that accumulates after a long day on the trails.

In addition, you should wax your bike to give it a fresh factory look. Although the cleaning routine varies between individuals, the general process starts with placing the motorcycle on its kickstand so you can access the wheel rims, switchgear, and throttle linkages. Apply the cleaning agent to exposed areas and rub the bike down with a clean cloth. You should clean your bike regularly to keep your motorcycle looking new and functioning at max capacity.

Wheel building puts many amateur motorcycle mechanics off because it looks so damn complex but broken down into bite size steps it's actually nowhere near as difficult as it might appear. Having built several spoked motorcycle wheels now, it genuinely does seem to get easier the more I do.

Undoubtedly everyone has their own way of doing this job and my methodology may or may not follow standard workshop practices but we can be assured the end results are correct; well, they work on my motorcycles anyway. I use the protocols and techniques passed on to my by father along with a few self-taught wrinkles; hopefully such combined wisdom will lay a few ghosts to rest and clarify the process. In a perfect world I'd have a wheel jig and wouldn't make mistakes. However I don't own such a device and do foul up; thus we learn.

The biggest problem would-be aspirant wheel builders experience is in understanding the basic layout of the rim, spokes and hub combined with their relationship to each other.

Friday a guy brings an V-twin motorcycle to our garage for a repair, the problem, a blown head gasket on the front cylinder.

Now, we have seen this motorcycle before, good looking two-wheeler, but been to all the wrong places. We bored these cylinders for the original owner a few years ago after they were powder coated and the edges diamond cut. All that went along just fine.

Problem happened when it went to the first guy to be put back together, working out from what I can best describe as a modified kitchen. You get what you pay for or sometimes you don't. Anyhow, they managed to assemble the motorcycle again, and in a few kilometers, a piston went south along with a lot of other parts. So that engine was trashed! With no warranty to go back on, off it goes to another repair guy who rebuilt the engine, stuck it back in the frame, and it ran fine... until it blew the first head gasket. Back to the repair guy for new head gaskets. Notice I said head gaskets. Well, here lies the problem. When the engine was rebuilt, copper head gaskets were used instead of composition gaskets. To make it worse yet, the head bolts were tightened to the crazy specs that is in the factory manual, then another turn for extra tightness...

Cleaning your motorcycle regularly is one of the most important jobs you can do. Not only will it look nice and shiny after you finish, it will also be protected from decay. But you need to choose the correct products for the job. Think about the different materials used to make your motorcycle; steel, aluminum, chrome, plastic, rubber and paint.

Then consider all of the things that affect them when you ride; rain, road grit, dirt, insects, ultraviolet light and abrasion .

You need to choose a cleaning product that is strong enough to remove the dirt but won't damage sensitive surfaces. Oven cleaner will certainly clean the engine cases, but it will also attack aluminum parts of the engine.

A good amount of you out there know that turning the preload adjuster does not make the spring 'stiffer' or stronger. The strength of a spring is measured by the amount of force needed to deform it by a certain amount, which is comfortable when you're working with coil springs which is what you normally have on a motorcycle. This is measured in kilos-per-millimeters or pounds-per-inch most of the time, and lbs/in is mostly used with some exceptions which use kg/mm.

Picking some numbers at random then; if you imagine a motorcycle that weighs 181kg, which is roughly 400lbs, having a set of scales placed under each wheel and held upright, the reading of the scales would add up to 181kg (400lbs)... fairly obviously. Quite what the weight distribution is going to be will depend on the sort of motorcycle is is; sports bikes tend to favor more weight on the front wheel than cruisers, but the springs in the front fork have to support that weight.

If you've ever taken a set of forks apart you'll know that the spring is slightly compressed, but not usually so much that the fork top nut is in any danger of being propelled so fast that you in any danger, but it does mean that there is a certain amount of force trying to extend the fork leg even when it is at rest.

You probably know how matching fuel injectors for a multi-cylinder engine can lead to a good performance increase. But what you probably not know is that not all fuel injectors are created equal, in fact a Kawasaki racing team took a bag of over 25 injectors to a well-respected firm that specializes in fuel injection and had the necessary equipment to measure the injectors properly.

The variation in flow rates was eight percent although I can't recall the actual flow rate, and so they matched the injectors to suit muliple-cylinder engines. The best set of injectors varied by less than one percent and the next best set wasn't much more – so in terms of matching them all together, they were reasonable close.

Race teams spent many hours on the dyno, mapping both engines and have very well developed maps for the engines. Essentially maps were the same but varied slightly as the motorcycles had different con-rods and picked up at different rates. On the engine with the best-matched injectors they found no measurable difference in the air/fuel ration (measured at both the mid-pipe and tail pipe) or power output. On the engine that got the meanest injectors, the air/fuel ratio was slightly leaner, but only 'points' of a ratio. A trim of one to two percent corrected this.