Excellent Week ( well 8 days)

The dirty look on spikey there :haha:

 

haha is there a spikey pic for every emotion/occasion lol

 

Nooooooo inch: bad spikey :fish:

 

Acl motorcycles in Oldham Hun that's where I take the gixer and he's a cracking bloke and extremely good at what he does and you get me the bits for the cosmetics and I'll fit em

 

thanks Fozzy where is he ? can you give the postcode so i can find him or an address and whats likely to cost me?

I need to talk to you about the cosmetics again at some point cant remember everythng you said lol and i need to work out the costs and priorities

 

Here ya go Lav.......He has just changed two tyres for me today.

http://www.acl-motorcycles.co.uk/

 

Nice bike Lavinia and a good choice I reckon. Now some 600 roadsters have more power than the older sports 600s they make great 1st big bikes. Nice

 

fantastic hun,the world is your cockle.

 

Well done hun, Congrats

 

back on the 125 theres a few urm "teething problems" with the new bike, like it didnt make it home :surprise: inch: :cry:

 

you're joking? :cry: bloody honda reliability my arse. ( should have bought the triumph )

what's up with it lavinia? did anyone go and look at it with you before you bought it?

 

Yea but the problems could have been concealed heres the story kinda in reverse order

I went to collect the bike today and it on the road waiting the seller said he had given it a bit of clean for me which i thought nothing of but thinking back he also said he had polished it up when we viewed it on thursday.

Before i left he said oh not sure how much fuel is in it ( no fuel gauge) so he checked it and said should be ok but when it goes into reserve it dies pretty quickly.

I rode home from Huddersfield to be honest taking it easy because it was my first time on the bike and I was very happy with it seemed to run ok as far as I can tell. The plan was to fill it up once i got close to home anyway.

As i got about 2 miles from home I stopped for a red light and it just died . i tried twice to start and the battery was really struggling so I i didnt want to flatten it and thought well maybe it was the fuel so i pushed it to the kerb and checked the fuel.

There was fuel but not much and not knowing how much before it struggled i thought it was worth gettin a gallon in it.


I put the fuel in rocked it a bit tried to start it and the battery was dead. i tried again with the choke out lol ( ever the optimist) still nothing.

It had stopped opposite a pub so i pushed into the car park and after 1 last try decided to get help.


I dont know anyone other than NWB so I tried to contact a couple of people but i dont think they got my message so I called Andy http://www.acl-motorcycles.co.uk

he came and said it wasnt going to start he said he thought it was something thats a common problem with these bikes and tbh I was abit too upset to catch what he said but it sounded like the red rec or the rad rec from what he explained it sounds like the alternator on the car.

He also said that the front nearside fork seal was gone and it had been leaking for a while.

And that the bearings in the steering were also faulty and he showed me how when the steering turned it " clunked " at a certain point I have to say I didnt feel or notice a problem driving it but it was very obvious once the bike was stationary and he showed me what to look for he said both these things were a MOT fail

But If the bike had been MOT'd a while ago it could have happened since , he said there was a fair amount of oil on the forks He also said that depending on how well they checked the steering it could have been missed at the MOT.



When we went to view the bike there was def no sign of leaking and i told Andy this he said it is easy enough to wipe it clear so maybe thats why it was polished and washed so much

The bike turned over first try and although he wouldnt let me test drive it he offered to take me pillion we went on a fairly long route and it seemed to run well.

Andy said it would if the battery had been fully charged it would run until it ran down so again that wasnt going to be obvious from the pre purchase check we did


Andy is putting it on charge on monday to see if his opinion is right and he is going to get a price to have the "safety issues" sorted so I can get on the road he is also going to check it over to see what else needs doing and finally when those jobs are done it will be serviced.


I hate that i know nothing about these things and I really feel like I've been had at least i now know how to check the bearings and to check for oil leaks ( on the forks at least ) after its run as well as before but I guess it's still hard to spot if someone is sure they dont want you to.

I also want to say that I m stiil very grateful to the person who checked it for me I dont think in anyway they can be criticised they looked for faults they just wernt obvious at the inspection.

i emailed the guy he maintains that nothing was said to him about these things either at MOT or when he had the fork seals done recently :S


On the plus side Andy said that the price i paid was about right but i didn't ask him if that was before or after all the faults lol

 

Bike looks great Lavinia.

Sorry to hear about the bad initial experience - hope it doesn't spoil it for you.

Very dishonest of the seller if the reg/rec is knackered as he would have to know about that. It is a very common problem with many Honda models from the 1990s as they bolt the reg/rec to the frame, and use the frame as a heat sink, so they often overheat and die. Unfortunately that usually leaves you stranded because none of the electrics will function properly without it. Usually people get it sorted, they don't just keep charging it up.

The fork seal and the head bearings are pretty typical things to have worn on a bike of that age, and the odd thing like is to be expected really when you're buying second hand. You won't find many bikes at a fair price that don't have some problems of that nature. And it's really a case of buyer beware - the seller isn't likely to volunteer information that would devalue the bike or compromise the sale, so it's very much up to you to check everything.

Fortunately, with the reg/rec being a pretty common fault, it shouldn't be too expensive to pick up a new one and get that fixed, so long as there is no damage to the rest of the electrics. The seals and head bearings should cost around 100-150 all in if you have them done at a dealer. You'd probably want to check the bearings in the shock linkage at the same time as they also ware and could be an MOT fail too. The only concern is that the fork tubes may be pitted or scratched, which can often be the cause of broken fork seals. And could explain why it's gone again if indeed the seller did have them done this year.


Not a great way to start out with the bike, but it could be a lot worse: Engine/carb/coil problems are more difficult to diagnose and often much more expensive to fix.

Hope you get it all sorted and on the road very soon. Bet you can't wait to get out on some long ride outs with it.

 

yea thanks alex its with the mechanic now who has been highly recommended and he seems like a decent bloke.

I will know on monday if its the reg rec and what the cost will be he is also going to price up the seals and there was some pitting but it seemed small andI think was on the other fork . he is also prepared to get the safety stuff done and then gradually service it overa few months to make the cost more easily swallowed lol


It of course spoiled it for me today I was enjoying the ride home and looking forward to going out again once i had filled it up but in the long run it will be worth it and I will know the bike is safe when i do go on it

just frustrating to have to wait lol

 

Sorry to hear you was have issues when riding it home, I know what that feels like too

 

HI lavinia . sorry to see your bike poorly but Andy will have you back on the road safe and sound. I meet Andy 3 years back and he ended up putting my bike right. it`s hard when you don`t know about bike. Andy will also give you advice about bikes for free.