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Hey, all....good to be back on this forum. Not much activity since I sold my little GS550T project to my kid a few years back; so little, in fact, that I had to re-register. (d'oh!)
I've been a busy rascal since then, buying a CB550 Four and VF750F Interceptor as projects (yet unfinished!), and I really needed a GS1000 like a hole in the head, but as you'll see, I am easily tempted. I see myself as sort of the Sarah McLachlan of Motorcycles (you've seen the commercials of her holding these poor, one-eyed kittens asking "Please, won't you help? These animals need you". I guess I feel that way about the bikes.LOL!
Anyway, on with the show........
Beginnings…….August, 2010 © 2010
Egads!…..What have I done!!?
Only broken most of my own rules, is all.
Of all the advice I could (and do) give most potential bike buyers, everything I tell them to watch out for, I saw, deciphered, processed, and ignored.
It didn’t start out this way, you understand. (It never does) My friend and fellow “bike mental patient” Kenny had called me, and said a friend of his had a GS1000 give-away. He’d asked Kenny if he wanted it. For free. Kenny said no; he doesn’t do Jap bikes. (He’s a Brit bike nut) but he had a friend (me) who he was sure would be interested…which is like asking Dean Martin if he’d be interested, possibly, in a dry martini…
Ummm…..yeah. OK. Twist my arm.
So, I asked the crucials of Kenny….like;
(a) Does it have a title? (yes)
(b) Have you seen it? (yes again), and
(c) So, what’s wrong with it? (no carbs, no seat, no tank)
This much I can deal with.
So far, so good. I’m interested.
Kenny tells me he can be available along with his trailer some time the following week. Again; so far so good.
Monday comes. I call Kenny. Now things are beginning to drift left of center….
Kenny tells me that now….ummm…the guy wants $100.00 OBO. Hmmmm. I’m a bit peeved now…it was free a couple days ago! What’s changed besides human nature? (read; greed). It does have a title, right? Yes, there’s a title; so I tell him what the hell; I’ll go 50 bucks, and wait to hear back, not expecting much, if anything. In this game, you have to play with table stakes only. I had the 100 bucks, I just wasn’t about to give it all away. Kenny calls right back-He’ll take the 50, says Kenny, and so I set up a time to get it. Oh, and by the way; Kenny says, I won’t be around tonight, but you CAN use my trailer. No charge.
Well, if the School of Hard Knocks has taught me one lesson, it’s “He Who Hesitates Is Lost.” So I call the guy direct, arrange to meet him that very same day after work, Kenny or no Kenny, make hasty arrangements with my son to pick him up at his house for added muscle, “just in case”, and off we go.
It’s not too far…maybe a twenty-thirty minute drive…but I’m not prepared for what we encounter.
Jiminy Jumping Jehosephat in a blue suede suit!…this thing is a rolling effing junkyard! Fast Freddie Sanford himself would run, not walk, away from this one! Not only are the tank, carbs and seat missing, but the side covers are gone as well. The tires are rotten. The plugs are laying atop the engine, plug holes gaping wide open like starving children’s mouths, with pine needles, spider webs, and other organic unidentifiables strewn all over the top of the motor….mostly clustered around the open plug holes. The gaping maws of the intake manifolds lie open and vulnerable. “It turns over”, he says (and proudly, at that!), and invites me to pop it into gear and push the bike. Only one problem with this theory…..I can’t move the friggin’ gear shift lever, up OR down!
The little hairs on the back of my neck are standing up on end now. Big time. I ignore them and shove the shifter hard with my hand; eventually finding first gear, somehow. I grab the bars and shove, and the owner pushes on the rear of the bike, but on the loose gravel drive, we only succeed in leaving a six-foot skid line in the dirt.
He goes to great lengths to explain how he pulled the plugs only last fall (???) and had squirted oil down the cylinders, and “forgot” to put the plugs back in….I’m not buying it.
“Danger, Will Robinson! Warning! Warning!” The voice of Robot from Lost in Space shrieks urgently inside my brain. And in reply, Dr. Smith retorts; “Silence, you bumbling bucket of bolts!”….as if listening to Dr. Smith ever came to any good….
It takes even longer to re-find neutral. Houston, we have a problem…with the shifter. Possible bad shifter forks, shift drum? This thing is a Roach Coach! Walk away, not today, walk away, the voices seem to say…..
Still, I persist. He shows me the title. He tells me his sad tale of woe about buying it off eBay for three hundred smackers and getting “ripped off”. So, spread the cheer around, eh, pal? Share and share alike?
The bull**** is getting really deep now; as if I’m too stupid to figure out I’m buying what he didn’t already part out? No tank, no carbs, no body panels…….?
I hear a pleasant, monotone female voice droning in the background, sort of echo-ey and distant, as if I’m watching a sci-fi flick……”Three minutes to self destruct…” I continue to listen to the guy lay it on thick. He proudly shows us his entire collection of lawn tractors, motorcycles, and other assorted junk, each complete with it’s own biography as to where he got it, how it broke, ad nauseum. I’m realizing right here and now, that this wretched hulk will cost far more to restore it than it will ever fetch on the market; especially today’s depressed bike market. “Two minutes to self destruct…” I should be running for cover, preparing for the blast. Donning the proverbial Lead Suit. The fifty dollar bill is still folded neatly in my wallet…nobody in their right mind would fault me from walking away from this train wreck now….”One minute to self destruct….59…..58….57…”
Go. Go NOW. “RUN FORREST, RUN!”
Now. Now is the time when the hero (or heroine) makes the mad scramble for the ABORT button and punches it just seconds before the whole damn thing goes up in a mushroom cloud. The Klaxon horns are blaring and the voice drones on….”6…5 seconds…4…3…”
I reach for my wallet….”Good-bye.” says Little Miss Cheerful, in that pleasant, monotone voice, the Klaxons screeching in the background as my common sense is vaporized in a blinding flash of crackling nuclear energy and searing white heat that makes Nagasaki look like a Black Cat firecracker…….
And so, like sheep being led to slaughter, I rolled it into the hardshell trailer and eased the front wheel up into the chock.. I had my son compress the forks as I looped the “S”-hooks of the ratchet straps around the bars and pulled them snug, then secured the rear of the bike as well. He was eyeing me suspiciously, as if I’d suddenly developed a third eye right smack in the middle of my forehead. Grown sons expect their parents to be all-wise, all- knowing. To set Good Examples and not do Stupid Things. I’m sure at that particular moment he was wondering if I’d gone completely off my rocker.
On the ride home, he voiced his suspicions as much. Maybe it was the after effects of the blast, or perhaps the radiation from the fallout, but a vision was beginning to assemble itself in my mind's eye; that of a lean-and-mean stripped down café racer; the sort I’d lusted after but never had the courage to build. I confess; I simply can’t bear to cut up a good restorable classic bike. The urge to restore back to original is overpowering; almost sacred. This pile of bones? Meh…. No regrets. I saddled my ’85 Nighthawk S with the moniker “Lazarus”, because like the Biblical character, he was dead and entombed. Written off as dead. And I brought him back to life. Well, if Lazarus was dead, this thing could be compared to a corpse being exhumed….after five or more years of pushing up daisies!
I dropped my son off at his house, assuring him that the ol’ man was more than capable of off-loading this pile of scrap metal by himself. I’d only brought him along in the first place, ‘cuz, well….you never know what you’ll find. Better over-gunned than underpowered, I always say. I drove it home, rolled it off the trailer and out in front of the garage, left it sitting there all by it’s Lonesome. I had to drop Kenny’s trailer off at his house before dark and got right to it, pulling back in the drive just before sunset. After shifting things (and motorcycles) around a bit, I cleared off the Handy Lift and rolled the patient up onto the operating table and raised it up to about chest-level to view the carnage. And then the hard truth really hit me. This thing looked like the friggin’ Wreck of the Hesperus! “EGADS!” I thought….WHAT HAVE I DONE…..?
Steady, lads…came a voice from within. I know what I’m doin’….this is what I DO. I looked about me and saw not only my three ”riders”; my personal bikes, but also the other two “project bikes” in various stages of completion, not to mention the tarp-covered car behind me up on jack stands sans motor and suspension….and wondered if I’d finally gone off the Deep End. I couldn’t resist getting off a smart-assed crack at myself; “So how’s that workin’ out for ya?” True to form, I ignored the wise-ass within, and picking up my camera, snapped a few “before” shots, then traded in the camera for a wrench….and dug in.
I've been a busy rascal since then, buying a CB550 Four and VF750F Interceptor as projects (yet unfinished!), and I really needed a GS1000 like a hole in the head, but as you'll see, I am easily tempted. I see myself as sort of the Sarah McLachlan of Motorcycles (you've seen the commercials of her holding these poor, one-eyed kittens asking "Please, won't you help? These animals need you". I guess I feel that way about the bikes.LOL!
Anyway, on with the show........
Beginnings…….August, 2010 © 2010
Egads!…..What have I done!!?
Only broken most of my own rules, is all.
Of all the advice I could (and do) give most potential bike buyers, everything I tell them to watch out for, I saw, deciphered, processed, and ignored.
It didn’t start out this way, you understand. (It never does) My friend and fellow “bike mental patient” Kenny had called me, and said a friend of his had a GS1000 give-away. He’d asked Kenny if he wanted it. For free. Kenny said no; he doesn’t do Jap bikes. (He’s a Brit bike nut) but he had a friend (me) who he was sure would be interested…which is like asking Dean Martin if he’d be interested, possibly, in a dry martini…
Ummm…..yeah. OK. Twist my arm.
So, I asked the crucials of Kenny….like;
(a) Does it have a title? (yes)
(b) Have you seen it? (yes again), and
(c) So, what’s wrong with it? (no carbs, no seat, no tank)
This much I can deal with.
So far, so good. I’m interested.
Kenny tells me he can be available along with his trailer some time the following week. Again; so far so good.
Monday comes. I call Kenny. Now things are beginning to drift left of center….
Kenny tells me that now….ummm…the guy wants $100.00 OBO. Hmmmm. I’m a bit peeved now…it was free a couple days ago! What’s changed besides human nature? (read; greed). It does have a title, right? Yes, there’s a title; so I tell him what the hell; I’ll go 50 bucks, and wait to hear back, not expecting much, if anything. In this game, you have to play with table stakes only. I had the 100 bucks, I just wasn’t about to give it all away. Kenny calls right back-He’ll take the 50, says Kenny, and so I set up a time to get it. Oh, and by the way; Kenny says, I won’t be around tonight, but you CAN use my trailer. No charge.
Well, if the School of Hard Knocks has taught me one lesson, it’s “He Who Hesitates Is Lost.” So I call the guy direct, arrange to meet him that very same day after work, Kenny or no Kenny, make hasty arrangements with my son to pick him up at his house for added muscle, “just in case”, and off we go.
It’s not too far…maybe a twenty-thirty minute drive…but I’m not prepared for what we encounter.
Jiminy Jumping Jehosephat in a blue suede suit!…this thing is a rolling effing junkyard! Fast Freddie Sanford himself would run, not walk, away from this one! Not only are the tank, carbs and seat missing, but the side covers are gone as well. The tires are rotten. The plugs are laying atop the engine, plug holes gaping wide open like starving children’s mouths, with pine needles, spider webs, and other organic unidentifiables strewn all over the top of the motor….mostly clustered around the open plug holes. The gaping maws of the intake manifolds lie open and vulnerable. “It turns over”, he says (and proudly, at that!), and invites me to pop it into gear and push the bike. Only one problem with this theory…..I can’t move the friggin’ gear shift lever, up OR down!
The little hairs on the back of my neck are standing up on end now. Big time. I ignore them and shove the shifter hard with my hand; eventually finding first gear, somehow. I grab the bars and shove, and the owner pushes on the rear of the bike, but on the loose gravel drive, we only succeed in leaving a six-foot skid line in the dirt.
He goes to great lengths to explain how he pulled the plugs only last fall (???) and had squirted oil down the cylinders, and “forgot” to put the plugs back in….I’m not buying it.
“Danger, Will Robinson! Warning! Warning!” The voice of Robot from Lost in Space shrieks urgently inside my brain. And in reply, Dr. Smith retorts; “Silence, you bumbling bucket of bolts!”….as if listening to Dr. Smith ever came to any good….
It takes even longer to re-find neutral. Houston, we have a problem…with the shifter. Possible bad shifter forks, shift drum? This thing is a Roach Coach! Walk away, not today, walk away, the voices seem to say…..
Still, I persist. He shows me the title. He tells me his sad tale of woe about buying it off eBay for three hundred smackers and getting “ripped off”. So, spread the cheer around, eh, pal? Share and share alike?
The bull**** is getting really deep now; as if I’m too stupid to figure out I’m buying what he didn’t already part out? No tank, no carbs, no body panels…….?
I hear a pleasant, monotone female voice droning in the background, sort of echo-ey and distant, as if I’m watching a sci-fi flick……”Three minutes to self destruct…” I continue to listen to the guy lay it on thick. He proudly shows us his entire collection of lawn tractors, motorcycles, and other assorted junk, each complete with it’s own biography as to where he got it, how it broke, ad nauseum. I’m realizing right here and now, that this wretched hulk will cost far more to restore it than it will ever fetch on the market; especially today’s depressed bike market. “Two minutes to self destruct…” I should be running for cover, preparing for the blast. Donning the proverbial Lead Suit. The fifty dollar bill is still folded neatly in my wallet…nobody in their right mind would fault me from walking away from this train wreck now….”One minute to self destruct….59…..58….57…”
Go. Go NOW. “RUN FORREST, RUN!”
Now. Now is the time when the hero (or heroine) makes the mad scramble for the ABORT button and punches it just seconds before the whole damn thing goes up in a mushroom cloud. The Klaxon horns are blaring and the voice drones on….”6…5 seconds…4…3…”
I reach for my wallet….”Good-bye.” says Little Miss Cheerful, in that pleasant, monotone voice, the Klaxons screeching in the background as my common sense is vaporized in a blinding flash of crackling nuclear energy and searing white heat that makes Nagasaki look like a Black Cat firecracker…….
And so, like sheep being led to slaughter, I rolled it into the hardshell trailer and eased the front wheel up into the chock.. I had my son compress the forks as I looped the “S”-hooks of the ratchet straps around the bars and pulled them snug, then secured the rear of the bike as well. He was eyeing me suspiciously, as if I’d suddenly developed a third eye right smack in the middle of my forehead. Grown sons expect their parents to be all-wise, all- knowing. To set Good Examples and not do Stupid Things. I’m sure at that particular moment he was wondering if I’d gone completely off my rocker.
On the ride home, he voiced his suspicions as much. Maybe it was the after effects of the blast, or perhaps the radiation from the fallout, but a vision was beginning to assemble itself in my mind's eye; that of a lean-and-mean stripped down café racer; the sort I’d lusted after but never had the courage to build. I confess; I simply can’t bear to cut up a good restorable classic bike. The urge to restore back to original is overpowering; almost sacred. This pile of bones? Meh…. No regrets. I saddled my ’85 Nighthawk S with the moniker “Lazarus”, because like the Biblical character, he was dead and entombed. Written off as dead. And I brought him back to life. Well, if Lazarus was dead, this thing could be compared to a corpse being exhumed….after five or more years of pushing up daisies!
I dropped my son off at his house, assuring him that the ol’ man was more than capable of off-loading this pile of scrap metal by himself. I’d only brought him along in the first place, ‘cuz, well….you never know what you’ll find. Better over-gunned than underpowered, I always say. I drove it home, rolled it off the trailer and out in front of the garage, left it sitting there all by it’s Lonesome. I had to drop Kenny’s trailer off at his house before dark and got right to it, pulling back in the drive just before sunset. After shifting things (and motorcycles) around a bit, I cleared off the Handy Lift and rolled the patient up onto the operating table and raised it up to about chest-level to view the carnage. And then the hard truth really hit me. This thing looked like the friggin’ Wreck of the Hesperus! “EGADS!” I thought….WHAT HAVE I DONE…..?
Steady, lads…came a voice from within. I know what I’m doin’….this is what I DO. I looked about me and saw not only my three ”riders”; my personal bikes, but also the other two “project bikes” in various stages of completion, not to mention the tarp-covered car behind me up on jack stands sans motor and suspension….and wondered if I’d finally gone off the Deep End. I couldn’t resist getting off a smart-assed crack at myself; “So how’s that workin’ out for ya?” True to form, I ignored the wise-ass within, and picking up my camera, snapped a few “before” shots, then traded in the camera for a wrench….and dug in.
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