Tools For Motorcycle Maintenance

When you’re the proud owner of a Harley-Davidson® motorcycle, you’ll want to keep it in great running condition. Fortunately, most motorcycle maintenance isn’t too hard to perform on your own at home. Whether you’re adjusting tire pressure or tightening up loose bolts, you can do plenty of minor repairs, provided you have the right set of tools for the job. This guide to motorcycle maintenance tools by Biggs Harley-Davidson of San Marcos should help you assemble your maintenance tool kit so you can tackle any task.

Tire Pressure Gauge & Air Compressor

Checking your tires before every ride should be a standard practice for you. You never want to ride on bad tires, so make sure that you have no bald spots, embedded objects, or worn treads on your bike. To check the pressure, use a tire pressure gauge and air up your tires to the manufacturer’s recommended levels with an air compressor. While you could take your bike to a gas station or service shop to air up the tires, having your own air compressor will save you time and be useful for inflating your car tires and plenty of other items like air mattresses quickly and easily. 

Wrenches

A good set of wrenches belongs in every tool kit. The more involved you get in maintaining your bike, the more wrenches you’ll need. A standard set of metric wrenches and some allen wrenches will be sufficient for anyone who’s just starting out with motorcycle maintenance.

Set Of Sockets

When you need to tighten and repair nuts and bolts on your Harley motorcycle, you’ll need a set of high-quality sockets that will last you for years. Some of these sets even come with warranties to guarantee their performance and longevity, so you can feel secure in making a smart purchasing decision. Socket wrenches are especially good when you want to avoid damaging any special finishes on your motorcycle, like chrome. A medium-sized socket wrench and set of metric sockets should be enough to handle most of your motorcycle repairs. 

Torque Wrench

This tool has the word “wrench” in its name, but it’s different from your average wrench. This tool allows you to precisely adjust your fasteners to the right tension. Being able to adjust tension is useful on engines in particular. While torque wrenches are more expensive than your typical wrench, this is because they are more delicate. Try not to drop this tool so you don’t ruin its calibration.

Breaker Bar

When you have a nut or bolt that just won’t break free on your vintage bike, you’ll need a breaker bar. This handy tool gives you an extension on a socket wrench to increase the amount of leverage so that you can remove any rusty or frozen fasteners easily without straining yourself.

Multimeter

Whenever you want to work with your motorcycle’s electronics, you will want to have a multimeter on hand. These convenient, small devices are used by professional mechanics to determine where electrical problems are and why a particular system might be failing. A multimeter has two probes to measure voltage, amperage, wattage, and ohms in a motorcycle’s electrical systems.

If you come across any issues that you can’t address yourself in your garage, don’t hesitate to contact the Biggs Harley-Davidson service department so we can help you out. And when you want to see some great Harley bikes for sale, come on down to our dealership here in San Marcos to take a look at our wide selection of Harley motorcycles! Biggs Harley-Davidson happily serves the cities of San Diego, Oceanside and Poway, California.