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WARNING: long post
Last night I was checking out motorcycles on Craigslist, as I do several times a day when possible, in hopes of finding one of the "great deals" that I often read about. As I was perusing the posting title one happened to catch my eye: 1981 Sliver Wing parts bike 500cc $150. I chuckled to myself about the misspelling of the word Silver and clicked on the link. I was happy to find that the bike was in reasonably good condition as parts bikes go, but no key was available. Two phone numbers were listed, one was a message number and the other was a business number with the the hours listed. So I talked to my lovely bride about it and she said "if you want it buy it". I really love that woman. Wanting to talk to a person and not a machine, I waited until this morning to call. The guy selling the bike told me that it was still available. I asked if he would hold it for me until Monday as I will be out of town this weekend and I had some stuff to get done before we leave tomorrow afternoon. He informed me that it was a first come first served. So I made a call to a friend of mine and procured his utility van and set out on my 160 mile round trip to acquire a "new" parts bike. Several hours later (bad road conditions, we got hit by a big storm Tues night) I now have a decent parts bike. I plan to pull the carbs and prolink and rebuild them, put them on one of the running bikes and then rebuild the pulled ones for the other running bike. Total cost: Bike $150.00, Gas $50.00, Lunch $2.00 (Taco Bell), five hours of my time. I'm really happy about this bike because I really didn't want to use my wife's old bike as a parts bike as it is a running bike. It does have a stator problem, but with two other good bikes I can work on it at my leisure. The parts bike has a good rear cowl, although it does have a crack in it and a nice small trunk with a nifty little rack on the top as well as a good looking set of exhaust pipes. For less than $2500.00 we now have four bikes, three runners and a parts bike. This is less than what my friend paid for a 79' Harley for his wife as a birthday gift last year. Who says you can't bike on a budget? By the way, my wife told me today that she wants me to turn her old bike into a trike for her. So, after I get her new bike on the road, I will start planning the trike project.
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Last night I was checking out motorcycles on Craigslist, as I do several times a day when possible, in hopes of finding one of the "great deals" that I often read about. As I was perusing the posting title one happened to catch my eye: 1981 Sliver Wing parts bike 500cc $150. I chuckled to myself about the misspelling of the word Silver and clicked on the link. I was happy to find that the bike was in reasonably good condition as parts bikes go, but no key was available. Two phone numbers were listed, one was a message number and the other was a business number with the the hours listed. So I talked to my lovely bride about it and she said "if you want it buy it". I really love that woman. Wanting to talk to a person and not a machine, I waited until this morning to call. The guy selling the bike told me that it was still available. I asked if he would hold it for me until Monday as I will be out of town this weekend and I had some stuff to get done before we leave tomorrow afternoon. He informed me that it was a first come first served. So I made a call to a friend of mine and procured his utility van and set out on my 160 mile round trip to acquire a "new" parts bike. Several hours later (bad road conditions, we got hit by a big storm Tues night) I now have a decent parts bike. I plan to pull the carbs and prolink and rebuild them, put them on one of the running bikes and then rebuild the pulled ones for the other running bike. Total cost: Bike $150.00, Gas $50.00, Lunch $2.00 (Taco Bell), five hours of my time. I'm really happy about this bike because I really didn't want to use my wife's old bike as a parts bike as it is a running bike. It does have a stator problem, but with two other good bikes I can work on it at my leisure. The parts bike has a good rear cowl, although it does have a crack in it and a nice small trunk with a nifty little rack on the top as well as a good looking set of exhaust pipes. For less than $2500.00 we now have four bikes, three runners and a parts bike. This is less than what my friend paid for a 79' Harley for his wife as a birthday gift last year. Who says you can't bike on a budget? By the way, my wife told me today that she wants me to turn her old bike into a trike for her. So, after I get her new bike on the road, I will start planning the trike project.
