Hi,

I feel a bit cautious about posting too much here, but I wonder if anyone knows this.... I'm not sure where else to ask.

Anyway, basically my local college runs courses that are very cheap for me (a technicality) and I really want to learn more about cars and engines. However, the only course they have on the subject is a 9 week, 2 day per week motorcycle maintenance course. Anyone here worked on motorbikes, and know how much learning about motorbikes would help me with cars?

Also, I have spare time on Mondays and Tuesdays (and the weekends), and I'd be really pleased to help out any of you London based guys with your car projects, in exchange for some of your wisdom...

If it's DIY car maintenance and servicing you want to learn about, a motorcycle course will be of no use to you.

If your talking basics like how a engine actually works and valve timing/carb setup then it may be of some use.
But a bike and car are set up in such a different way although they may be fundamentally the same there too differnt for any practical knowledge to be transfused from one to the other.

I expect the bikes you work on will be carb and not injection like almost every car is now, clutches are very different brakes are different...the list goes on. Bike maintenance is a great thing to know about but its not going to help you understand things like electronic ignition, turbos, Cooling systems, complex breaking systems/ABS

Bike engines are great for looking at and studying because everything engine-wise is made to finer tolerances and a better degree of finishing than a car engine. Hence they can rev to 14,000 RPM.

Most modern bikes have similar systems to cars like ABS, electonic ignition and so forth.

On the whole though, I'm not sure it would really be beneficial for fixing cars as they are pretty much completely different other than they both have engines.

I say do it anyway though, gets out out of the house! Plus bike maintenance is great, everything is so much cleaner than cars!

Plus you could put a bike engine in a Panda when you know what your doing