I went to see this bike over in DC, well University Park, which is in Maryland outside of DC. To me, any place inside the 495 beltway and much outside, is in DC. I can't stand to drive there, go there, or even think about DC. There is too much traffic, too little parking and God knows the streets are confusing. DC is probably the primary reason so many people buy GPS units for their cars.
I downloaded and printed the directions from Google (I didn't have my Iphone yet). It wasn't really too bad of a trip since it was Sunday. The owner wasn't going to be home, he and his wife were riding their Harley into Annapolis (imagine that for irony I live in Annapolis), he gave me permission to take a look at the bike. I have to give him credit, he didn't lie in his Craigslist posting. The bike had some damage, supposedly from a contractor who backed into it. The speedo read 9,970 miles, the bike actually looked like it had been ridden hard and put away wet; along with the attendant rust and decay that went along with being put away wet! There were alot of dings in the paint. The passenger backrest was sun burned and decaying. I called him to set up an appointment to see the bike run, hopefully.
When I arrived on Monday he was out trying to get the bike running using a gas can and a battery charger. There were sputterings of life from the old gal which was a good sign. He couldn't understand why it wouldn't continue to turn over when it was hooked up to the charger. I explained that although I didn't know diddley about motorcycles (which will become clearer as this blog progresses), it was my understanding that the charger couldn't provide enough cranking amps to do the job. We proceded to find jumper cables and hook the bike battery to his truck battery. This did the trick although it didn't run well the engine wasn't frozen.
He said that the bike was originally his fathers, a DC motorcycle cop. After a time his dad just wouldn't ride the bike any more. My guess is that his father took a spill on the wing, didn't want to tell his son and just got the frights about riding any more, which is understandable. I've never taken a spill and don't want to. He mentioned that another person was coming to look at the bike. I'm a pretty good haggler but I know when not to haggle. I felt the bike was worth $1000 for part alone; if it didn't work out, I would sell it for parts. I only had a few hundred dollars on me. I say only because when I stopped at the ATM on the way to his house I found out that the Insurance claim check had yet to clear. I told him I could pay him the rest tomorrow if he could deliver the bike on his trailer. He agreed.
On Tuesday I beat him to his house. He arrived a few minutes later from work in a suit. I'd bought a new battery for the bike in the hopes that we could ride it up onto the trailer. That didn't work out. The bike hadn't been run for eight years, it didn't want to run, and more like a mule than a pig, it wasn't going to run. During our labor as the bike sputtered and smoked, he noticed that it looked like water coming out of the head, UH OH. We shut it down and tried checking the oil. He said he saw oil, I wasn't sure I did. I decided I would go ahead and buy the bike. After all, I knew how to repair a blown head gasket, not on a motorcycle, but what the heck!
You see, a few years ago, while living on my boat, I tried to start the engine and water started pumping up out of the carburetor! I'm no mechanic but I knew this wasn't what was supposed to happen. I did what I always do when I come head to head with a problem involving things that burn gasoline, I called my father. This was the old days not A.D. or B.C. this was P.G. , Pre Google! My father is Google when it comes to gas engines, at least ones that have points, plugs, and carburetors. We made a date for him to come down and check out the situation. Sure enough water had worked it's way into the exhaust and had been sucked into the engine. Water doesn't burn, condense, or compress so it does the only thing it can do; it blows out the head gasket. That's what I figured happened here; water got into the exhaust pipe, got sucked into the engine and blew out the head gasket. Fortunately, I was wrong, but that's for a later post.
Getting a 700 plus pound machine up a ramp onto a trailer isn't as easy as it might seem. I had thought about but didn't bring all my extra blocks (that's pulleys to you non nautical folk) and line (rope) laying around the house; luckly he had a come along. This wasn't the hottest day of the year but it wasn't chilly either. That man did work. I got to ride the bike and keep it upright. The bike made it home uneventfully
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