Like many things we do or don't do, it is up to the person doing the work, especially on his or her own bike to make the decision. If you have new washers there and feel the need to replace them, then by all means do it. Would I let not having new ones in my garage on Friday night keep me from finishing a job and going riding or racing for the weekend? Put everything on hold until I can get to a bike shop and order the correct washers, nope, but again that is just me. Our own experiences usually dictate how we react to these things and it is neither right or wrong. The first shop manager that I worked for summed it up nicely. He said, during a conversation similar to this, "There are always at least 4 ways to do something, your way, my way, the right way and the wrong way". The phrase is much more accurate than it seems.
Our own experience determines how we feel about this type of question or in the absence of that, what we have read, or been told by someone whos opinion we respect.
Or we have a situation arise that forces us to change our opinion.
As far a experience, I have mine and you have yours. I have ridden for 41 years and messed up some stuff.
I am (was) a certified MC mechanic with a degree from AMI
which is now Wyotech in Daytona. Worked as a mechanic in a Kawasaki shop and for a while in a Yamaha shop. Did a short stint as a shop manager for a Kaw shop, built 8 or 10 bikes from the bare frame up, built, maintained and rode drag bikes for 3 years, built, tuned,maintained and rode roadrace bikes for 5 years and have always done all my own maintenance on all of my street bikes and I reuse them.
In the past 41 years, I have had exactly zero failures of copper sealing washers, so my experience says to me, if it looks good, it is. Yours may say something else. Go with what you know until you need to change. Very few things in this world are really YES-NO or BLACK-WHITE. When you think about it carefully, almost everything is MAYBE-GRAY.
|