Subject: RE: The free bike
Author: Fred Sahms
Date: Feb 23, 2005, 7:46 AM
Post ID: 1718441449
I have been riding a free bike a friend of my wife's was going to haul
to the junkyard. It's a 78 KZ1000 LTD he inherited from his
grandfather. It developed an oil leak and he tried to fix it.
Amazingly, it didn't need tires, tubes, a chain or a battery. It also
came with the very nice toolkit, keys and service manual. It did need a
new (used, Ebay, $19.99) cylinder from sitting outside with the plugs
out. I bought new rings, a used set of forks, fork seals and a top-end
gasket set. A KZ drag-racer friend let me use his NuWay valve seat
cutter to clean up the valve seats.
I have about $300 in it and it runs great. Sounds just like a cop bike.
I will be ditching the buck-horn handlebars and bar-mounted turnsignals
because the HD guys see the signals on the bar and think it's a
Sportster and wave, until they get closer. I do need to get a clip-on
mullet to wear when riding it.
I never turn down a freebie! At the worst I can haul it to the junkyard
for trading fodder or Ebay off any good bits.
Halchuk wrote:
| Years ago I learned the free bike lesson. Every now and then someone I meet tells me about a free bike that they or someone else either has available or just picked up. So I try to explain the real cost of the free bike without discouraging them. So here is a quick analysi from my persective. What is it? Would you buy it if it wasn't free and for how much? Now the cost of just getting it "running" : (All prices are estimates and averages) tires & tubes -$100 each battery - $50 chain - $100 cables - $100 So you are already into the bike for ~$500 and it still looks the same as when you got it for free. At this point the romance and allure of the free bike starts to touch on reality. Many people get discouraged at this point especially when the free bike is a 1975 350cc Asian model. But that is just a matter of personal taste. Hench the my decision to spruce my Eldo. I mention this as I start looking at the reciepts for my Eldo and realize that the price of creating a thing of beauty is truly priceless. Tom |
73 Eldo
78 T3/949