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He was moving and wanted to sell it to me for $200 just to get it gone, and he figured I might have better luck selling my bike for the price I was asking if it came with a parts bike like his. Little did he know I had no actual plans to sell my TDM, I just wanted to gauge the market, but sure if the price is rightI mean who wouldnt.
So anyways, obviously I buy his tdm for $200. Who wouldnt. He did me the service of pressure washing it first atleast.
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And it looked to be in decent enough shape. The seat was in great shape and still plush, and besides being incredibly dirty and missing one fairing it seemed to all be there. Aside from the gas tank that is
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Well it just so happens my buddies and I are doing a $1k bike challenge- have to get a bike and get it running for $1k or less, then were taking a 500 mile trip at the end of next month and filming it for YouTube. I had purchased a 99 sv650 for this but it ended up needing more work than I anticipated. In fact theres 3 cylinder heads laying on my workbench with pitted valves right now for that thing. So I figured why not use this TDM instead!
I got right to work to see if this old 3VD would fire up. Every key hole on this bike had been tampered with, but Id already run the VIN and it was clean. I pulled the carburetors off, which had some cheap pod filters (no wonder the old owner couldnt get it to run right), grabbed a used battery from the workbench, unplug the ignition switch to hotwire it but find its a 3 wire and all my diagrams are of a 4 wire. I poke and prod and get the lights to come on, shot some starter fluid down its throat, hit the starter button, AAAAND nothing. Not a thing. Try the other wire on the ignition switch hotwire but only the tail lights come on. Must be the park position, I think. Oh why dont I check my bike nope no park position. Odd. Decide to plug it back in and grab my trusty screwdriver to see if I can turn the mangled ignition switch. I can. Lights come on. Reset. Try again. Still nothing
I grabbed the flathead and crossed the terminals on the starter relay. PHOM PHOM PHOM she turned over and compression sounded like it existed, but still no fire. Atleast the engines not locked up, I think to myself. I pulled a spark plug wire off, grabbed the jumper cables and a known good spark plug. Plug in boot, ground on plug, other ground to battery. Turn it over. No spark. I pull fuses to check, dirty as can be, a bad connection perhaps? Grab sandpaper. Clean connections. Reset. Try again. Starter button magically works this time, and VVVRROOOMMM she screams to life before dying as quickly as she screamed. Shes a runner. Shes a track star.
Filled with serotonin I run inside to grab my wallet. I had already priced out all the obvious stuff it would need. A new tank, chain, carb rebuild kit, intake bolts, air box, petcock, fuel pump, battery, etc. $736 worth of parts. All in all Im $937 in now. With a little wiggle room before the $1k budget cap. Hopefully it wont need anything else too major. But I am nervous about the charging system. I havent had it run long enough to verify its working and I hear these R/R are notorious for failure. Read something about upgrading to a cbr600rr R/R iirc? Anyone shed light on that?
Ill keep this thread going as I scramble to get it ready for the trip next month. Wish me luck.