As a proud owner of an IZH Planeta 5, I am extremely happy with the workshop manual translated from Russian.
Because under Technology for detecting the causes of errors in the ignition system I read:
“Is the defect a suppository or ignition plug tip? To shine, I shine from a burn. Wipe the insulator with a dry napkin, or replace it. Wipe or replace any cavity on the tip body.”
And that's just one of the clearer pieces of text. Let's get some gas this afternoon. And two-stroke oil. These components must then be 'sloshed together in the barrel'.
It is reminiscent of the - sort of - English texts on Japanese motorcycles from the early sixties.
But with technology of this level you have enough indications. After all, “we” AMK readers are technically quite capable. Moreover, in our early days, technology was not yet such that a motorcycle was advertised as 'the ideal platform for your smartphone'.
An acquaintance recently came by with a – not so new – Goldwing. Technically speaking it was a classic in terms of year of birth, but with the electrical problem he was having I couldn't help him because I got lost in the electrical diagram of the machine.
We have often built up 'our' dexterity/skill over decades of tinkering, at which point we had made so many mistakes that we had learned from them. I remember the first Pluvier moped that I had taken apart, but which was never put back together... At that level, which I have reached through trial and error, I and some acquaintances of mine can get away with anything up to four cylinders and only has one overhead camshaft and rocker arms. After installing an electronic ignition once, life becomes pleasantly clear. Because correctly setting three sets of contact points at one Triumph Trident or a Kawasaki three-cylinder are not for everyone either.
But what to do with the diagnosis of a coupling problem described as: 'Relaxed attachment of a body to a gland flows or the mud on a gland'? I keep that manual as a curiosity. And the answer to my technical questions or problems? I find that through the videos on YouTube. No matter what language they are presented in. Because the videos speak for themselves. If in doubt, you can rewind or freeze the image.
There are videos like that for rarities like the IZH. But for the more common or respected classics, you can spend evenings wandering the internet until the technology of your classic is crystal clear to you. If you then insert a new video into your smartphone during the actual disassembly, you can record the disassembly step by step, which is very useful during reassembly. This way you embrace classic technology with the possibilities of today. That's beautiful!
I also have the originals in Russian for those interested: flawless!
Google Translate also has those beautiful forms of speech.
You usually get the common thread from the story, but the literal translations are not accurate at all.
Russian is not a language that is widely read and taught here, so Westerners need some 'help' with that.
That makes for hilarious translations….
Workshop books, especially the Haynes, I love them.
I collect as many as possible from my vehicles.
I also like to have the original dealer books, although they are sometimes difficult to obtain.
But those translations are indeed sometimes quite strange.
Buying experience is cheap. Building experience is expensive.
I'm seriously laughing about that translation of the Russian manual for the IZH😂.
With something like that you would rather think of an erotic description, boy. As a tinkerer you also have to be inventive. Sufficient experience or not. The son of the family that lived in the local castle farm had a Honda Goldwing. Four cylinders that did not get along well in the interplay. And I only had two vacuum gauges. 🤔🤨I synchronized them two by two L/R and then synchronized the adjusted and real connected pairs. The result was astonishing. As a 17 year old, I had transported that instrumentation there on the back of my Honda C310 and started working tirelessly. The Goldwing's instruction booklet was a joke. After an hour of searching and browsing, we remembered as much as when we opened it. The construction did speak volumes and it was literally done within five minutes. And lucky we had! Anyway, I had a motorcycle helmet pressed on my head and it sounded like: “Go ride that thing”. Truly a wonderful experience.
Not long afterwards (the fresh milk was bought there) I came back again. Before I could even get off my C310 I was almost dragged off. They needed it because they had run the tractor empty and they couldn't get it to work anymore. They enthusiastically bled it with 'everything' filled with diesel again, but started it completely empty. Would you have that again? Can't get that thing to work. The sum of mistakes is indeed called experience. Well…They would never forget it! 'Veased everything'? So they missed the fuel pump. Just bled the thing itself and… Anyway, after that it was a piece of cake. With an extension cord to the castle meadow where the tractor stood, seemingly paralyzed, with its knees in the evening mist. Add the starter booster and start. It took a few moments before Dad burst out of the stable and screamed for us to stop. Looking back while starting, we saw the light in the stable flashing at the pace of the starter motor and in the twilight of the sun that had just left the horizon, we saw the cord steaming the damp grass over a distance of about 40 meters. What a sight! The milking machine had stopped and the cows had become audibly rebellious from all the unrest. Oh dear!! Now let the tractor start again at that moment!! He coughed himself awake with thick clouds of black smoke. We were once again a few more experiences richer. Also that experience that you should not disturb a farmer while milking, even if it was his own tractor🤣.
@moritzzzzz, Nice story.
Cows are in any case very “current sensitive”.
They respond very quickly to electric fences.
And milking machines are grounded in all kinds of ways, because they respond to the slightest current.
Diesels are indeed a disaster when they are empty.
And about that experience:
I have a few diesel milling machines.
Start with a rope.
And that works a little differently than with the average recoil starter of a lawn mower.
Putting on 15 hp on 1 cylinder on a diesel means pulling the rope a few times up to the compression.
let it roll back, again, and again, and then through.
Don't dilly-dally, BY.
Otherwise the recoil is such that the hand and wrist want to take the rest of the day off.
But you can only do that through experience.
My neighbor thought he would do that too.
His wrist hurt for a week, and the sheets were literally hanging from his hand because the rope was tearing through them.
A “flymo” turned out to start really differently than a Lombardini
Experience is the sum of the mistakes made, and I already have a lot of experience 😉
And then we didn't have a YouTube to look up the videos