When I got my bike.

I was in Vancouver back when the Maxim X was new. I was with a group of bikers and described the kind of bike I wanted. One guy said get a MaximX. I had never heard of it and checked it out. I ended up getting a mint used 1985 model (8000km on it) for $3000. The guy had been very gentle with it. I felt this was a good buy as they were selling for $4500. new before taxes.

That fall I went back to my home town. On the way I stopped in at a dealership in Williams Lake. To my surprize they had discounts on showroom models. A Fazer could be had for $4000. and there was a MaximX for $3000.! Oh well...my bike has done we well. I still have it and it presently is getting a minor overhaul in my basement. I have another post on what happened which I will update as things progress.

I just thought some here would find my story interesting and you may have some of your own to tell.

 

Nice story Forgiven! In hindsight, you were probably better off with your MaximX, it was already broke in! Which meant you could ride the hell out of it on the way back home.

 

I first saw my '81 Seca 550 sitting next to the road with snow on it, and a cardboard for-sale sign wilting with the moisture. Its seat was torn and its turn signals smashed, all of the aluminum was a seriously mottled grey and it had this horrible rusty 4-1 Kerker on it.

But it fired RIGHT up, and settled down to a nice idle almost immediately. And it needed to be rescued.

Best $800 I ever spent.

My Norton I saw new in the crate before it had ever even been assembled.

 

8O Closest I can come to that is helping a buddy of mine build a Murphy home-built airplane. My XJ was a Craigslist ad for less than 24 hours before I picked it up, and the guy had 2 other people e-mail him about it before I could pull away. Given my prior experience with the XS11 I knew why those e-mails were there and I knew I had to grab it before another guy did.

 

Big, why do you call the '83 Seca a "toxic asset", in your signature lol?

 

My 400:

I had just sold my 5150 II half stack, and old drum kit to buy my first bike. I had $1700 cash burning a hole in my pocket that i could play with, keeping in mind i have to pay for taxes, getting it plated, ownership etc etc.

Was looking on kijiji for a local good buy, and then, after a month or so of looking, there she was. The post had only been up for 10 mins when i called the owners. The owners were surprised that i was calling so soon after they had posted it lol, made arrangements to come down after i was done work. Took the trailer down after work, and that was that, i brought Ruby home.

The Seca:

I had done a bunch of work for my bud Dez over half a year or so while i was unemployed. He called me up one day telling me how he had bought this older motorhome and i had to come down and see it and visit.

So i drive down and he shows it to me, then says, oh hey i got something else when i got this, and takes me into the garage. I open the door and there sits my Seca. Dez was telling me about it a bit, how it needed a bit of work, some new paint etc. then proceeds to hand me the keys and says "Thanks so much for your help over the last months, she's yours." My face lit up i'm sure

I've definitely had to put some money into her to get her looking and running really good, but for a free bike, i don't mind putting a grand or so into her, to have something i can really be proud of. And something that will carry my butt around better than the 400 lol.

AND i still have to sell the 400 in the spring, so that will for sure cover any money i've put into the 750, and maybe leave enough to get myself a new half stack, (kinda wish i never sold the 5150II was a great amp, but i'm definitely glad i did to ride).

 

I tried to resist this thread but it kept coming back to haunt me and most of you guys know by now that I enjoy writing. Almost all of you know the story behind my turbo since I'm so new here so no point in going through that again. I did write the story of my first bike a while back though so I'm going to paste it here.....

Way back in the mid seventies.......

I had been working with a HVAC contractor who had to pick me up everyday before work since I did not own a car. He told me that he had a '73 350 Honda in his shed that he would not only sell to me for $350 but he would let me work it off over time. I had a driver’s license for a car but had never ridden anything bigger then a minibike a couple years earlier. I of course jumped at the offer and days later I had a blue 350 Honda parked in front of my home. It had been repainted a sky blue and to me, it was the most beautiful machine I had ever laid my eyes on. It wouldn't start and I had no knowledge of engines other then how to replace a starter(miserable bastard) in a ford station wagon, a water pump in a '63 Lincoln Conty(SOB) and a couple of other names- ah, tasks that my dad had taught me. I always helped my dad when he worked on our cars because that's where he would use words that I had never heard him use before. I actually heard him use the F word once...while working on a car of course.

Anyway, I puttered and explored and finally, with a little help from friends, got that 350 running. I taught myself to ride since none of my friends knew either and ran that bike up and down a nearby dirt road 1000 times every chance I got. I practiced stopping and sliding and falling down caused by a combination of the first two. A friend’s dad came over to see my motorcycle and asked why I didn't ride it on the street. I told him I didn't have a tag for it and then he told me the secret of getting a tag without insurance. I lied and wrote a fake insurance policy number down at the DMV and got a tag for it. I had no insurance and no license but I was on the road! Wow, it was like a drug but better! I rode that bike everywhere....for 15,000 miles I rode that bike until I sold it and bought a '72 T500 titan Suzuki.

My riding continued and included all of the 2-strokes of the 70’s and learned the fine art of building very fast two stroke engines. I even did some club racing on a breathed on Water buffalo that I had built all by myself. After getting off the bike once during a race I had made a personal promise to myself that when I had married, I would give up riding when my first child came along. I had just stopped rolling and hadn't even stood up yet to check myself to see if I still had all my parts! Years later I would keep that promise after never having told it to my wife. She couldn’t believe that I was walking away from something that I loved so much. My reasoning was simple really, in a car you slide, on a bike you go down and I didn’t want my kid(s) growing up without a father. Rather then sell my prized H1 when that time came, I gave it to a good friend that prized two-strokes as highly as I did.

Fast-forward 22 years. I got back into the sport with a new Vstrom1000 in ’07 and began to collect and restore older Japanese bikes. Eventually I amassed quite a nice collection; a nice 75 Z1, a ragged and tired GT550 that I completely restored and modified to give it the power I always knew it could have, a '74 RD350, a couple of H1's and H2’s, a 79 GS750L that I restored to showroom new and a few others. Something was missing, one bike was missing……

So last month I get an email from a friend saying he saw a 1973 350 Honda for sale up in Pa. I chase it down and call the guy. We talked for maybe a half hour and he tells me that it's low mileage but he took the carbs off to rebuild them after they sat with gas one winter and never finished it so that has to be done but otherwise the bike is in perfect shape mechanically. When I asked what was the least he could sell me the bike for...$350 was the reply....the same as I had paid for mine over 35 years ago!

I got it home and one of the carbs was bad....the needle jet is integral to the carb body and it's a pressed in deal. I searched the net and couldn't find one anywhere then I found a carb body with a jet that looked like I'd be able to get out at the VMD event in Ohio that I had ridden my VStrom out to.

After getting home I sprayed some hoogie stuff on the jet and let it soak. It pressed out with little more then a slight tap on a wooden dowel. I finished rebuilding the carbs and replaced the main and secondary jets, jet needles, float valves etc. I installed the carbs and fixed the leaking fuel petcock and electric starter button then installed the battery.

When I hit the starter it spun for maybe 5 seconds, nothing.....I opened the points cover and sanded both sets of points (I haven't installed the tune-up kit that he gave me with the bike yet), pulled the plugs and hit them with a wire brush, gapped and reinstalled them. I sat on the bike and hit the starter again....it spun for about 6-7 seconds before coming to life and settling into a beautifully smooth idle...all with no choke!

Wow, it's hard to believe that this cheap little bike could bring back those memories so vividly. No, it's not really fast and the RD350 I have will run rings around it on a twisty road but I just have a special place in my heart for this bike. You guys that collect and restore old bikes know exactly what I'm talking about...it's just a special feeling and it's cool as hell.

jeff

 

Found my 85 XJ700 in the local paper in 91. It was only about 10 miles away and when I went to look at it, it was practically brand new, only about 5700 miles, IIRC. However, when the PO tried to start the bike, gas was running out onto the floor from the carbs and the bike wouldn't start. The PO settled for $1100. About 45 minutes and a can of carb spray cleaner later I was tooling around town. I've had the bike since. Last year was the first major carb teardown I did and now the bike is running great again but years and weather have put a bit of wear and tear into her. I'm planning to give her a great cleaning/polishing this spring as well as repaint the tank to bring her back into really nice trim.

 

My first bike wasn’t really mine it was a friend at the time whose parents had split up ands dad used to spoil hi rotten. One time I was round at my mums for the weekend and went to see him and he had a brand new mini moto in his garage that his dad had just bought him. He ran it a good couple of months until the usual rust, bold tyres worn brake pads (has mechanical disk brakes from a push bike as standard) and he lost interest and thought it was to slow. And it just sat in his garage for a wile until we had an idea after watching some Yutube videos on mini bike tuning to make it go as fast as possible.

We had to get it running first as it had been sat for a long time, this involved cleaning the carb, new plug and cap and it fired in to life. The tuning started with aftermarket air filter I just drilled out the main jet as at the time could not fined bigger jets adjusted the needle and some other tweaks. After that we bought a second hand performance exhaust from some one we new for £5 with a blown gasket repaired with instant gasket FTW!!! We ran it like that for a while until we went half’s on a 70cc kit witch greatly enhanced the performance, we fitted it with some help from my mums boyfriend (we where only 10/11) we bedded the kit in for a while taking it easy, we clocked it pre kit at 21mph down hill hitting the limit on a pushbike speedo we had fitted. Ran it for a bit then got new tyres (maxxis) bigger plug new chain and sprocket bigger front than standard, and a mountain bike hydraulic rear brake and disk. After a good few weeks of heavy thrashing we took it do a long down hill stretch one Friday afternoon for a very high speed run we achieved a massive 34mph down hill chin on the tank strong back wind another few tests and band!


It finely died clutch went, hold the piston, dropped the rings, blew more than one hole in the crank case, and the con rod let go. It was getting near nine o’clock and all of a sudden we realised we should get home we where in a rough area so we left the bike by the road side in a bush. We made it home in one peace, when we came back the next morning it was gone nothing but a small puddle of oil. I never saw or heard about that bike again (usually round there if something like a bike is robbed it turns up dead on the beach or with an aerosol paint job in some ones garden)

My first proper gear bike is my 05 Yamaha TZR50 that I am fixing up for when im 16.

Al