Topic: STARTING UP A salvage Buell 1125R

[754]

Got this bike I  at my buddies shop.. no key..steering locked.. crap..
Got the ignition lock off the lower part, now you can turn the ignition.
 Got that apart, , fiddled with rear seat, got it open, to the battery .
 Boosted it , it lit up all the displays in Speedo.
 Got it to try to crank, but weak. Sat for awhile, then it fired up..
Keep in mind some of these bikes sit for as long as 2 years, don't know on this one..

Then this happened........WTF ?  ..?

[scottly]

Flood salvage??

[754]

We don't know, it was a big surprise. 
 
A month ago we fired up my son s 750, it had an angled  4 into 1 on it .  no bike cover at the time..
We were surprised that it seemed to have water in it and a lot of steam came out.. a bit strange as the  pipe had only been on it maybe 5 weeks..

[RAFster122s]

Check the oil for water. It was running when it did that barf out the pipes?

If it was hydrolocked then you would be bending valves and other damage...
flood bikes are bad news...the silt and dirt does massive damage to bearings and other internals as you know.

Water cooled or air cooled?

Might be a parts bike...or a cheap bike sold as is with salvage title

Plastics and other hard parts can be more than he paid for it.
Imagine there are a lot of flood damaged bikes out there. Knowing where they came from can give you a clue, but they don't always give you history. Isn't there a CARFax for Motorycles? equivalent thing, not carfax per se.

David

[jgger]

Really guys, isn't this typical Harley leaking unknown juice from unknown places?😨

How long did it run before it barfed? How does the oil look and is there any external clues as to weather  it was a swimmer?

[754]

Oil is clean but low checked after a few minutes of running, looked clean..
 No real evidence of water, rotors look same all the way around.
 The insurance company does not clean anything before auction. far as I know.

My personal theory,  it may have been beside something that got washed frequently in the salvage yard.
 We had one before with water in the pipe, will check if it was same yard.
 And I will ask if they maybe  they do pressure wash them, and someone put water in there.

 Ready to go as a track bike, the way it sits. Will try to ride it tommorow.
Got a Ducati 690 from there and  a lot of other bikes. Like the pic below.
Got a 08 Heritage Softail there,  that sold and I just put a sidecar on.

[jgger]

Even if the insurance company did clean them up for auction I don't think that they would change the oil. Your theory might be spot on.

A good lock smith could make a key for that bad boy in about 10 minutes, then the steering lock and ignition switch wouldn't need to be changed..

[seanbarney41]

Not much Harley there, engine is rotax

[simon#42]

That's why it started

[754]

I will be  honest here,
 At least 10 salvage HD,s came and went thru this shop in the last 15 months.
With the exception of  one, they all fired up surprisingly fast. Surprised us at first actually... like often within 3 seconds. Our quick intro to fuel injected bikes. The one harder to start was carburated and had had sat in the salvage yard for 2 years.
 The Rotax actually stumbled a bit m we tried it before the flat battery had a chance to charge.
 Interesting stories on some, although you don't get much info on some of them.
 One hit a cow. One hit a bear. One went down in the USA and got rode back up here before it got examined. One was from the US, and got written off here....dont know how the rider got home. Some buy another bike..

 An interesting thing. If you import a bike here you must change Speedo to kilometers. If a US bike gets written off here and resold, it gets to keep the mph speedo..

[754]

 Well I rode the Buell today.,
 Man does that bike pull hard , scared to give er in third.
 Pretty strong front brake with great feel, never tried anything like that before..
Was trying to be carefulmit was just below freezing.
 It has a vacumn assisted clutch
Felt funny in lower speed corners, not used to it

[RAFster122s]

Really makes you wonder how a bike like that ends up in salvage. Stolen? No signs of being wrecked from what I can see.

Most of the time if you have a salvage titled car or bike coming from another state or country it has to have reason for salvage title along with a detailed list of all parts replaced to bring it back to road legal (legal by inspection). TN apparently has trouble with titled cars that were salvaged and passed a law that no car over 10 yrs can be given a salvage title, or a number of miles.  To protect against old cars being put back on the road and not being safe I presume. Hopefully not because TN washes titles.  FL can be a sketchy place to buy vehicles from.

What do you think caused this one to be salvaged? Any signs of theft such as broken locks?

The Buell police bikes have a cult following and with Buell belly up thanks to HD and Mr Eric Buell from selling out to HD, parts are a problem for many models.

People are buying the Alfa Romeos again, forgetting what Alfa did to a lot of owners when they pulled the plug on the US last time. You had to get parts from overseas, still do, but they became very pricey.  Today, any car has pricey parts...at least new ones do.  My car is 18 yrs old and I know my insurance company only values it at around $1k so I know if it is wrecked it is totalled unless it is able to be bolt on parts fixing it myself with very little body shop work.

I know when I insure my bikes which ones I will carry collision on and which I walk away from if I wreck them.  But, I hope my skills riding will allow me to walk away from a wreck...but you cannot control the idiots behind the wheel who never see you.   So, flashing headlamps in daytime and strobing brake lights are going to be std on my vintage bikes...hoping to gain the attention of the zombies behind the wheel who don't see things while on the phone, etc.

[754]

 A lot of the bikes that get  written off here are not that bad. But they count every scratched part to be replaced.
In fact people coming to buy these are often  suspicious, why they look so good.
 The bagger in the pic above had I think over 20 K damage. A 55 K bike new.  low mileage. 2014.  Most of it was the missing rear trunk with its speakers and other goodies, right saddlebag and bracket, exhaust cover., i piece of it. One muffler tip. The rest looked really good  you could easily  replace that stuff minus paint for under 5 K. Bike sold for 16 K.  They have to go thru inspection which is around 300 but or less , then get registered.  The buyer will be smiling..
 Some of the bad ones are marked salvage only, and those cannot go back on the road.

[ofreen]

Frank, it looks like the dog that peed on your bike is dehydrated, better keep the water dish filled.

I rode one of those back when HD pulled the plug on Buell.  I was impressed with it.  $5500 new out the door.  It was tempting, but that would have made it too many bikes.

[Bankerdanny]

Really guys, isn't this typical Harley leaking unknown juice from unknown places?😨

How long did it run before it barfed? How does the oil look and is there any external clues as to weather  it was a swimmer?

I believe the 1125 used a Bombardier engine, not the Harley based air/oil cooled engine that prior Buell sport bikes used.