The Wife and I had always talked about what her “big” bike was going to be after she decides to upgrade from her Suzuki S40. Now let me tell you, there is nothing at all wrong with the Suzi. When we bought it, I rode it all the way from North Georgia to Knoxville. It was fairly comfortable for my 5’9″ frame. But, she just wanted a bigger bike.
Well, one of my hobbies is cruising Cragislist for bikes just to see what is out there. About a month ago, we ran across a guy in Maryville that had a 2006 Honda Shadow Spirit 750 DC, in Candy Orange. I knew instantly that this would be the bike she wanted. She saw it and liked it so we started making phone calls. Turns out the bike was not running, but other than that it was fine. No body damage (yet, read on). We went the next day and checked it out. Turns out the owner bought it new, rode it for a season or two and then let it sit. Only had 3600 miles. The finish was a little weathered, but not terrible. It would not start, although it did turn over, which is always a good sign.
He was asking $2700 for it, which was not a bad price at all, but I explained to him that it could be a number of things, and because I did not have x-ray vision, I was taking a chance on buying it. He agreed and we settled on a price of $2000 flat. Not bad!
The next day, the work started. We started with checking the little things first. But let me go ahead and explain: I am not a mechanic. I am a quick learner though, and just followed a path of what makes sense. With this philosophy, we started with the fuses which were all fine. I then removed the gas tank and loaded the carburetor intake with some 93 octane. Fired right up! Okay, good, now what? I pulled off the filter and and cleaned it out. Still no gas. Tracing the fuel line, I find this Shadow has a fuel pump. I actually never knew that a carbureted bike would have a pump.
So I pull the fuel pump, and take it apart. This particular pump has points set in it like older distributor caps had, and this set was bad. I gave it a little fix to see if it would work, and lo and behold, GAS TO THE CARBS! The bike was running very rough though, but it ran none the less.
At about this time, I dropped the gas tank. I had it sitting on the seat, and was backing the bike up to the garage door to vent the exhaust, and it slipped off, hit the floor and dented the front in one spot. It also managed to land in the kitty litter I was soaking up oil with and scratched the paint too. Feeling pretty foolish, The Wife was informed and she just chuckled and said poo happens. Thanks honey for being so understanding, that’s why I love you! As a side note, we took the tank to Dent Station Plus here in Knoxville, and they did a great job of pulling the dent. It was not cheap, at $160, but oh well.
So now that we got the bike started and running, the process of getting it going for good began. Honda of Knoxville was our main source of parts because at this point, going OEM seemed to be the most logical choice. The fuel pump was the single most expensive part at $140. Everything else was fairly cheap. Once the new pump was installed, I tried to flush out the carburetors with Seafoam. This does not work for badly clogged carbs. Just go ahead and pull them. I wasted $20 on this stuff with no success. Just pull the carbs. It was fairly easy, and a great learning process. It took me half a day, but I did it very slowly. Hardest part was pulling them out. And a little trick: if you dab a little Vaseline on the cylinder ports, they slide back on very easily.
Once that was done, I adjusted the valves, which were WWWAAAAYYYYY too tight. I don’t think they had ever been adjusted. So we got them set and the engine started to run much better. Still not 100% but it’s getting there. I think there might be a little build up on the valves. We then changed the front fork seals and oil, as the front was very mushy. Then we pulled the rear tire and cleaned out the brakes and belt.
All the oil, brake fluid, and coolant was changed and the cables were readjusted. We also changed out the spark plugs, which to my surprise, there are four of them. We then took the chrome pieces off and polished them up with some Eagle One. The last thing we did was go though the bike and torqued down the bolts. All this took a few weeks, and maybe about 40 or 50 hours total. Like I said, I am sort of slow, so this should take an experienced person less time.
Two weekends ago, the weather was awesome, in the 60′s, so we took her Suzi and the Honda out for a ride up to Norris Dam. What a beautiful day! Everyone around here who owns a bike was out. The Honda ran very good. It still could use a little more tweaking, but nothing major. I think it will start running better once it gets all the junk run out of it. I might have to adjust the AF screws, but will need a better tachometer for that, but it’s not a big deal for now.
In all, we are very pleased with the purchase. It was a great learning experience for both of us. Was it any cheaper buying a non running model? Yeah, by about $500 to $1000. We have a little less than $1000 invested in it after purchase. The two most expensive things were the fuel pump and my carelessness. Oh well, poo poo happens.
Take it easy everyone and ride safe.
Hey Good Looking….
No Tanks
Oh Noes!!
Honda-Davidson
