New Project

Last week I found a bike on craigslist which appeared to be in reasonable condition and also in my budget (< $200) which is a highly unprobable combination so I had to jump at the opportunity to get it. I ended up paying $150 for the bike and borrowed a car/trailer to go pick it up (what a deal!). In the listing it looked like this:

When I went to pick it up with my buddy Dave and my two nephews it appeared to be in approximately the same condition so I made the deal. We dragged it home and due to company I left it sit for a week. Last night I finally had a chance to take another look and was fairly surprised (and panicked) when I found a black widow in a full web on the bike. I crushed that one and another I found and vacuumed up as many of the males and spider webs as I could find. I think I got everybody but wonder if any escaped into the garage, doh! Apparently there was a catch after all.

I am hoping this is a summer rehab project but at the rate I get free time and depending on the state of the bike itself it could take much longer. More pictures are forthcoming but here is my current list of known issues:

• no paperwork, title, registration or anything. the bike is pretty much a ghost in the system which could cost some scratch later when it is road-worthy.
• hasn't been run in about two years
• seat not attached
• gas tank is from a different suzuki bike (the original came with it but it is rusted out and would need to be restored by someone)
• no front brakes (wtf!?!?)
• flat tires (probably dry rotted but I haven't really checked yet)
• no ignition (previous owner just taped the the wires together)
• sheared bolt fell off when I was trying to wipe off the cobwebs (not sure what this is from but drilling out the hole and re-tapping looks to be in my future)

Overall they are all addressable issues and the frame seems square so maybe this could work out after all. From what I have seen the bike itself is fairly rare since it was not a big seller in the US. It also has been mentioned as fairly advanced for 1980, easy to work on and in general a very solid bike so I'm hopeful things will work out eventually. I think ideally I will convert it to a \cafe racer with a new set of handlebars and maybe rims eventually. Getting the original gas tank restored would be awesome but seems a long time off right now. We'll see what happens. So far I have taken off the plastics, cleaned it up a little and ordered a Clymer manual from BikeBandit.com which should show up late next week.