UPDATES FOR 1/25/2014
I wanted to take a minute to finish my recap from last week as I will be doing a very exciting post later today for this week. You'll just have to check back to see what that's all about! As for last week's updates, there were actually several things that I got done. The first task was replacing the battery in the Honda CB650 Custom. The other one was shot so this was a must. The new battery went in with no trouble and I got it wired up within a matter of 10 minutes. It was exciting to see the electrics come on when I turned the key for the first time. The carbs were gone through and cleaned by Justin @Justin's Cycles earlier in the week, so we went ahead and fired it up since the tank still had a bunch of gas in it. It sounds great but gasoline was pouring out from where the petcock connects to the gas tank. It was obvious this was going to need to be replaced as well. I pulled the tank off and drained the remaining gasoline so I could remove the petcock. Sure enough it was broken. Those typically run about $30-$40 dollars so no big deal there. The other reason I wanted to take the gas tank off was because the tank had been repainted "rattle-canned" before I purchased it and was wearing around where the seat met the base (as you can see in the picture below). Before I bought the bike I asked the owner if there were any dents or major flaws on the body of the tank. He said, "Bondo has never touched that tank." I suppose I should have asked, "Then why the touch-up paint job?" But I didn't. I took his word for it.
I stopped by PepBoys to pick up some paint remover to get started on cleaning up the tank for a fresh paint-job (that I was planning on doing myself). As I started stripping the blue layers of paint, what do you think I discovered? Yup. Bondo and fiberglass wrap. There are many pinholes in the tank as well as a couple dents. This sort of lie really pisses me off. Not only because it is going to eat away at my profit for flipping this bike, but because he knew that if he told me the truth about the tank, I'd drive the price down a bit more. A good seller doesn't hold out details like that, especially when new gas tanks for these vintage bikes are so hard to find in solid condition and fixing them up is equally as expensive. The paint job I was going to do myself I will no longer be attempting. I will need to find someone that can do some metal repair work on it, then have it professionally bonded and sanded. "Why?" you ask? Because whoever ends up buying this bike from me won't get the thing home and discover all kinds of new surprises. They won't be blogging about what an asshole I am either. While I do enjoy bringing these beautiful machines back to life, this is also a business that I'd prefer to make money at. Reputation can go a long way from what I've seen.
After all that drama, I got to work on replacing the rear taillight/license plate mount on my Honda CL360. I had bought one on Ebay several months ago that looked great on the bike but turned out not to function properly. The taillight was always lit up no matter if I was engaging the brake or not. This was kind of a bummer because I really liked the look of the old one. I posted the pictures of both below. The bike is really coming together and it's bittersweet to be near completion.
(new)
(old)
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