The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance: Tips & Techniques to Keep Your Motorcycle in Top Condition

by Mark Zimmerman

Popular motorcycle journalist and author Mark Zimmerman brings a comfortable, conversational tone to his easy-to-understand explanations of how motorcycles work and how to maintain them and fix them when they don't. This practical tutorial covers all brands and styles of bikes, making it a perfect companion to the owner's service manual whether you need to use the step-by-step instructions for basic maintenance techniques to wrench on your bike yourself or just want to learn enough to become an informed customer at your local motorcycle service department. This book includes more than 500 color photos and a thorough index to make it an especially user-friendly reference for home motorcycle mechanics of all skill levels.

Genres: Motorcycle, Nonfiction, Motorcycling

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Mark Zimmerman is the Technical Editor of Motorcycle Cruiser magazine, and a contributor to Classic Bike Guide magazine. He lives in Danbury, Connecticut.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple and easy to follow. A couple of levels below my knowledge, but a good read for a beginner none the less. Easy to follow and makes motorcycle maintenance a little less daunting for the newer riders and mechanics. If you have a bike and dont know where to start for maintenance, then start here. experience comes through work; Knowledge comes through education.

[Stephen Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began this book shortly after finishing the Hayne's Motorcycle Basic Manual. In conjunction with that work I feel much more confident in approaching my motorcycle (and others) with a moderately informed eye. The Hayne's guide had relatively poor descriptions and good figures. This one had good descriptions but lacked the associated diagrams to truly understand things like a three phase alternator (which my bike has). It is acutely difficult to write a "basic" motorcycle maintenance book as bikes differ drastically from OEM to OEM and especially through time. That being said this book had a logical approach that I appreciated and broke down each system to what really is important (entire volumes have been written on electrical current rectifiers, but this work just says what they do, not how they work - which is all that's important to the shade-tree mechanic). Above all else - I now feel equipped to confront my official service manual with a solid fundamental foundation. These two works (this one and the Hayne's manual) together got 6/5 stars, so take that as you will.

[Level Up · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have a better understanding of Motorcycles!

New rider here with minimal motorcycle experience. I read this book looking for a simple explanation of how motorcycles work and this book made it easy to follow. The chapters are broken down and they build on each other. Along with reading this book I also used YouTube videos to see this book come to life. Overall great book and easy to read, left feeling like I just started my first semester of motorcycle class.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for beginner and intermediate wrenches. The author goes over basics and more advanced procedures. He also give great advice about tools and specialty tools. I've been wrenching bikes for 23 years now and I still learned a few cool tips. I keep this book right next to my Harley shop manual.

[Bryan Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is a rare mix of knowledge and writing ability. I’m an electrical engineer and I wouldn’t have been able to explain the electrical principles he did as well as he did. A ton of good info in this book, so much detail that I skipped reading more sections than I care to admit. But everything I read was very good knowledge. Had I been reading this in the middle of winter I would have read it all, but I have a ton going on this summer. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to increase their knowledge, of pretty much anything motorcycles. Lots of good advice on troubleshooting, storing your motorcycle and anything else I could think of.

[Bud Winn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually ordered this in Kansas and had it shipped to my dad's house in Maryland. I was cross-country motorcycle riding from Los Angeles to Kansas to Maryland to South Carolina and back to Kansas. I took 30 days of leave before I went to Iraq and had a big adventure - fun times.

[Jessica]

Mark Zimmerman is the greatest guy in the world!