taken my bike to bits nowt wrong with it but really really wanted a good clean

the amount of crap that wo on the forks alone, destroyed a sisel brush polishin um up

and has taken me days... makes you wonder how people let there bikes get in such a state

well worth it thou

Try using 'muc-off' bike cleaner, works a treat and means it takes me 10-15 minutes to clean, oil and polish my bike!

When you say you've taken it apart, what do you mean?

I've never removed anything from my bike and just clean the exterior and spray any metal with WD40.

I know nothing about mechanics and don't want to ruin my bike by having parts dropping off while I'm riding down the street, but do I need to learn how to take off certain parts to maintain my bike properly?

I have an '07 R6 and my dealer said that even the oil and break fluid wont need touching, they'll look after it on its service dates.

Help.

do I need to learn how to take off certain parts to maintain my bike properly?

It's been a while since I had a faired bike (VFR800ABS), but I imagine things haven't changed much -

You'll get lots of crud and crap inside of your fairings, It won't do any harm to learn how to strip these back then you can clean what you can't see. Depending on how long it is between service, it's a good idea to give the bike a visual check over at least once a month, you get advanced warning of developing problems, Oil/water leaks, corrosion, damaged rads etc. Do this when the bike is new and you learn what it looks like when it's all together right.

I'll give it a go.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated:)

When my suzuki was MOT'd the tester said it was nice to see a fully faired bike that was as clean on the inside of the fairings as the outside.

All i do is clean all the panels when there off and the bike when she's serviced (by me ) at the start of the year. You know there are no nasty surprises waiting to jump at you either cos you didn't leave it all to a dealer.

I've said it before and much as there are good bike mech's out there you only need 1 bad one to screw your bike.

am all for taken my bike down to the bone and cleaning it,,

so much crap gets inside them it is unreal,

plus you can have a look for problems that might happen,,

leaky oil, water, so on and so on!!!

gives me time to be nice to the misses to get the cash out for anything that it needs!