naked Goldwing communication

I'm always amazed at how just one word can inspire, illuminate, engage, inflame, defuse, or in some other way alter comprehension. I was reminded of that when I decided to save myself $200 and change the timing belts on my 75 Honda Goldwing GL1000 myself.

One thing you have to do is get the engine flywheel to Top Dead Center. You look through a peephole in the top of the engine and line up two notches on the rim of the peephole with a line on the flywheel that says 1T. The problem I had was in knowing at what angle to view the notches in relation to the 1T line on the flywheel. If you looked in from directly above the peephole, the marks lined up differently than if you looked in from the side of the bike. I did a lot of reading on the subject but the light bulb wasn't coming on for my brain. The thing that clicked for me finally was the single word "perpendicular". I lined up my vision perpendicular to the flywheel and that helped me get unstuck.

Similarly, a picture or diagram is exactly what is needed for those of us who are visual learners, and aren't most of us becoming visual learners these days, even if we didn't start out that way?
I belong to an online forum called NGWclub where I get most of my help for working on my motorcycle. They have a detailed write-up on how to change your timing belts. One of the diagrams wasn't showing up on my Mac computer. When I mentioned that problem, I was directed to a PDF file that had been made of the instructions and there was the missing diagram that helped me comprehend what I needed.

The picture above of the wrench with the zip tie holding the pulley in place was a nifty idea that I got from the NGWclub site. I love the way that people get ideas about how to solve a problem and then they freely share them with others. This little trick of the trade keeps that pulley in place while you finish putting the belt on. That pulley wants to move but the wrench won't let it. If you're working by yourself it's ideas like that that give you a third or fourth hand and solve the problem.

What does a person get out of passing on tips and tricks and timely information? A thank you perhaps, or just the fun of being valuable and useful to another human being. Sometimes it doesn't take much, maybe just a single word.