Darn plastic

[Adirondack Bill]

I have very much  enjoyed my Valk for 6 years now. What I don't enjoy is all the dam plastic you have to remove to get to anything you want to work on. Also, this dam plastic is held on with more plastic fasteners.  I had to remove 2 plastic cowls to get to the radiator.  The radiator  cowl is fastened to an inner plastic doo-hickey, with several  plastic cowl  (clips).  They look like a push -button type plug. With a great deal of aggravation,  I pried off and destroyed  2 of them before I discovered that you just have to push in the little center button on the fastener to release them.  I hope someone can learn from my  aggravating  lesson,  if you see a round fastener with a little center button, just push in on the center to release it.  What the hell ever happened to good old nuts and bolts?   Then, putting all that plastic back on, trying toget all the holes to line up- more aggravation.  I have a new found respect for bike mechanics.  I very much enjoy doing my own maintenance, but this plastic is ridiculous. Well, I am done ranting, thanks for listening.

[hubcapsc]

Look on Amazon or such to find $15 - $20 assortments of 50-100 of the
little plastic pushpin things. Honda wants several dollars ($5 ?) for each
one!

-Mike

[Robert]

 

Thanks Bill for the laugh, it mitigated some of my built up frustration with these. My first encounter with these was awhile ago on a car and they are a pain.

But there is always a good side. Once you learn to deal with them and understand that while important they are not the critical piece to things going together. They are only the glue that holds the form in position. Now the screws that actually anchor the plastic to metal those are important. Replace the ones you break and dont push the center pin all the way through as you will loose it. You dont have to remove all the pushpins along the front edge of the cowl either to take it off. There are only a few that you have to remove to get the cowl off. It can be bent slightly to clear the radiator and mounting points and if you pull and tilt its pretty easy. The first time is always the hardest.

You also dont have to pull both radiator cowls off to check radiator fluid level, one is sufficient, of course the one with the radiator cap which I think is the one opposite the kickstand.

Keep us informed we need the laughs. 

[Crabballs]

Don't feel bad, the new generation Wings have many more of these fasteners than the Valk, so that's a positive us Valk owners. 

It's an Asian thing! You simply don't understand and us Westerners just have to adapt.  Bottom line, I didn't sign up for this crap and don't want to adapt.  If I want to walk around in public wearing a protective mask and gloves I would have moved to China, the HungLo Province to be exact, and make iPhones 16 hours a day and get paid $2 for my efforts.  Just give me my nuts and bolts so I don't have to read a shop manual and watch a video to change my air filter.

[Tundra]

There are worse bikes for plastics removal, still a cool bike and well worth the first time frustration. Lot's of bike for the buck.