Yep, this still happens occasionally. In this case, a friend of a buddy picked this one up a few weeks ago. It's a 1980 Special II, pretty much complete and with a title. It belonged to a friend's father and has been parked for many, many years (last inspection sticker says 1995). It was a runner but had shifting issues so got parked. Looking it over, the problem was easy to spot - the shift lever is way loose and probably stripped on the shift shaft. Here's some pics .....
The guy really rode the wheels off this thing, as the mileage indicates .....
The motor's never been apart and he never did any major work to it. He had another 650 before this one that he also ran up lots of miles on, 40 to 50K he said.
Thankfully, the bike was stored inside, so it's in remarkably good shape for having sat 25 years. There's very little rust on any of the chrome .....
I figure if the new owner throws about $1000 at it, it can be made into a pretty nice bike. It will be a long term project as he's just finishing another bike (old Honda 750) and has an old car to fix up too.
The guy really rode the wheels off this thing, as the mileage indicates .....
The motor's never been apart and he never did any major work to it. He had another 650 before this one that he also ran up lots of miles on, 40 to 50K he said.
Thankfully, the bike was stored inside, so it's in remarkably good shape for having sat 25 years. There's very little rust on any of the chrome .....
I figure if the new owner throws about $1000 at it, it can be made into a pretty nice bike. It will be a long term project as he's just finishing another bike (old Honda 750) and has an old car to fix up too.
