I had been having my eye out for a cheap bike for some time. It's been a while since I've ridden. So I turn around and go back to look at it, and no, my eyes had not deceived me, it did say $1200 on the windshield... oh, it's a Kawasaki, with 73thousand some odd miles on the clock... no wonder it's so cheap.

I wouldn't have believed it... but there it was... so I got the phone number, and went home and googled Kawasaki Concours. Turns out there are forums and an owners club and a whole community of owners devoted to this bike, some reporting over a hundred thousand miles. And it looked pretty good for the age, other than the tape on the seat, the down and dirty cowl repairs, and of course the cobwebs on the taillight. Actually looks better than most of the project bikes I had in the past. So I call the owner and arrange a meeting. Meanwhile, I read up a bit more about the Connie. There's a lot of info available about the bike, including parts breakdown microfiche, and prices on all the parts, lots of tips and tricks, etc... I swore off jap bikes years ago when I got my first Tiger. But now, a marriage, two kids, a home improvement biz, a busted leg, and a bankruptcy and foreclosure later, I'm looking for a cheap bike.
So we meet at the farm stand, and the owner is telling me there's an oil leak, from the shifter shaft seal, "but only when it's parked on the side stand".
 

I look at the bottom of the motor and there's oil. He says the drain plug stripped and he replaced it with a self tapping drain plug.
 

He starts the bike and it runs pretty good. The motor sounds pretty noisey, timing chain, piston slap, or maybe needs a valve adjustment? And I can smell the oil burning off the pipes, or is that from blowby?
But there is no smoke from the exhaust, and it runs like a champ after just a short warmup. This means the motor has is wearing gracefully, the rings and cylinders are worn, hence the blow-by, but the lack of oil burning indicates there is no major scoring in the cylinder walls. eh... I offer him $800, we settle on $1000, so I write him a check. I leave my truck, and ride home on the Connie. It goes pretty good, so I ride down to park where my wife and two boys are at the Cub Scout fishing derby. On the way back, some hotties are smiling at me. I smile back, and almost drop it... gonna take some getting used to. It's different, by far the heaviest bike I've ever owned.

But it's red... my favorite kind. Stay tuned...

Update: I have ridden to work a few times, the first time it poured like hell on the way home. Then a piece of branch or something fell out of a tree and hit the windshield, down low at the mounting screws. Now there is a crack coming out from under one of the screws. The next day at work everyone razzed me about riding home in the rain. Jimi and Tammy in the finish shop made me a custom painted Tyvek rain suit. One of the guys went home during lunch and said the weather report was pretty bad, described by the weather girl as 'like nothing we've ever seen before'. Later we got tornadoz, a first for NH. My other trips to work on the bike have been pretty much uneventful.

9/1/08: Well the weather finally cleared last week, I rode the bike to work every day... about an hour each way. The drain plug is still leaking a bit, but the oil smell is gone, perhaps it did just need some running to burn it off after all. The racket from the motor quiets down when the motor is warmed up. I dropped the bike on it's right side in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago, broke off what was left of the right drivers peg. I should have known better than parking on a slope with the kickstand on the high side. The peg had been broken off before I got the bike and the previous owner bolted a rider peg onto the remains of the bracket. The right side passenger peg had been already broken too, and I had clamped a vise grip onto the bracket for my son to use. So I took the vise grips off and used them for a driver's peg for a while, but then that broke off too. Fortunately someone on the Concours forum had some replacements for me. I've replaced the right side drivers peg and bracket, probably do the passenger peg today. I also got an oil pan off e-bay, but I'll wait till it's too cold too ride before I tackle that.
 

5/13/09: Hey, winters over time to ride again! Well, almost... It's still pretty cold in the morning when I leave for work, low forties. Well, yeah, I certainly could ride in low forties, lots of bikes out on the road. If my ride was 10 or fifteen minutes instead of an hour I would. But I haven't finished putting on new tires and a few other things yet. I painted the rear wheel after I put the new rear tire on. Then I decided to paint the final drive, foot pegs, foot peg brackets and a few other parts. I painted the rear wheel "Metallic Black Night", which looks more like a dark gray than black to me, and the other parts gloss black. I'll paint the front wheel when I change the front tire. I still haven't changed the oil pan, it sucks working in a storage unit. For that matter it sucks working on it at home in a parking lot, too. eh...

6/28/09: Sheesh, rain, rain, rain! I finally got the bike back together a few weeks ago, and it's done nothing but rain! Well, I did spend a Saturday riding, with my 11-year old son. Under the threat of some serious looking clouds, but the sky did hold up for us. Woo-hoo! But, anyway, about the bike: It ran great! I had taken the carbs apart after the tires went on, cleaned them out, and installed Steve's jet kit. Well, the carbs were pretty clogged up, it's a wonder it ran at all! Then I decided to tackle the oil pan, but after looking at it carefully, and a question on the forum, I decided to try putting an oversized drain plug in instead. I ended up with a same size but different thread pitch plug and a Perma Coil insert. Then I installed Bergmen's spin on filter kit. I then took out the front drain bolt, and the aluminum threads came out with it! So I Perma Coiled that one too.

Well, if it ever stops raining I'll get some pics with the blacked out parts, and the sorta black wheels, it looks great!

here's a bit about some other bikes I've owned: Out of the Blue - Motorcycles