In order to get my CB350 titled I have to undergo a "test for originality" by an independent laboratory -obviously at my cost-, so they certify the bike is original and I can title it as "antique". Well, when I took the bike to the lab, while the inspection was going on, chatting begun with the engineer. I didn't want to talk more than needed and he didn't seem to be trying to make new friends either, but in any case, sufficed for me to know that he was into bikes.
After the test was over, it follows a couple of weeks of calls to provide additional data, to ask for the status, to get over there and pick up the documentation etc. More relaxed, we have talked much about bikes, and he told me he has more than 40 bikes!!!! many of them given for free -you know, a guy wanting to get rid of a bike and deciding where would the bike be more nannied than with my bike-lover friend, and gave away for free or for a song. As he told me, he has at any given time at least 15 insured bikes, ready to roll, and swap them every year as the moods dictate.
Talking about parts, he told me he doesn't store parts for them, it would be unpractical, but he improvise solutions anytime he needs to. And that's when I freaked out, he told me he have many times improvised a carb diaphragm with..... a rubber glove. As he told me, he has never had any trouble with it, and beats the price of new diaphragms anytime. Have you ever done something like that?
