Howdy folks

[Hairy_Eyeball]

Hey all.  I am making my obligatory new member post.  So I had a 72 Honda CB500 that I crashed a couple of weeks ago.  I was miraculously unharmed (minus some road rash), but my poor Honda is pretty done for.  The insurance company gave me a few thousand dollars for my "injuries", so I'm shopping for a new ride.  Ive got my eye on a 1986 R65 and I figured I would come here for guidance.

What I know:
16,xxx miles
pretty good cosmetically (small paint chipping, a seat tear)
2nd owner has had the bike for almost its entire life and seems to be pretty responsible and not interested in riding the bike into the ground
$3000

good deal?  bad deal?
What do you R65 pros think of this year?  Any quirks I should be aware of?

Im also interested in putting a little cafe fairing on it, are these available/affordable?  

Any and all input is appreciated.  Thanks all.

[aussie]

Hi Hairy - and welcome. Commiserations on the loss of your CB500 - I used to own an '84 CX500 (the poor man's BMW). I assume that you're in the States so I can't comment on the price. Bikes in Australia are horrifically expensive - I paid A$3 500 for my 1978 back in 2000. I got the buyer down from A$4 500.... I then had to fork out  some fairly high $$$ to get it up to speed and get some bits and pieces for it (and it's still leaking @#!^^&&* oil). In retrospect I went into the deal at a bit of rush and as my dad used to say 'buy in haste - repent at your leisure'. For what it's worth, from memory it had about 33k km on it - I assume it had been around the clock once - lets face it  - a 20 year old bike is highly unlikely to have only 33k on it (especially when I found a map of NSW in the tank bag he threw in for free (and yes, it is an original BMW bag from the late '70's)). I just bought a fairing for mine - an original BMW item from ebay - it cost me a bit over 13 Euros - US$18 (came from Germany). The price was right - but shipping - sheesh I don't even want to go there....I had a look at the A&S BMW website and they have one in their blue prints - but I have no idea how much it may cost - didn't even go there for mine as they have a policy of not sending outside North America - not even real happy about sending to Canada... if you want to check out what the fairing may look like you can log onto eBay and hunt for tbt47 (me in my younger days) and have a look at items I've recently purchased. It's currently being painted a nice classic black. This makes the second fairing I have - I also have an original 90S fairing that came with the bike (not attached) that I also had painted. Now that one I'd LOVE to attach, but for the life of me I can't work out how to do it. Cheers, aus

[not-so-fast-ed]

Welcome aboard Hairy!

Good to hear that another "Mono" may make it back on the road.  The current owner seems to have left the bike idle a good bit of the time if it only has 16K on the odometer.  Or does it?  Speedometers and odometers on these models often are wildly inaccurate, or completely die.

I paid $3000 for my '87 model (build date 5/86) last December.  It had 42K on the clock at the time and was a second bike for the previous owner.  Of course the odometer stopped two months later..

It also cost an additional $636 to get it shipped from the west coast.  After that I had to put a set of tires $224, brakes, brake hose, rebuild the front caliper, and do a full change of fluids, filters, plugs etc.
The Rifle fairing was another $600.  Last big expense was an Odyssey PC680 battery for $135.  Many other "small" items that I've lost track of.

As you can see, I got in a bit over my head.  But a good bit was buying sight unseen and trusting a local shop on the west coast to give me an honest inspection.  Much easier to view, ride & have inspected, a local bike.

What part of the world are you in?  We have members far & wide and may be able to put you in touch with someone near you.

Good luck,
Ed

[Hairy_Eyeball]

Thanks for the replies everyone!
I'll definitely pay some attention to the odometer when I take it for another pre-purchase ride.  When the odos on these bike break, do they usually just stop dead, or do they tend to die slow, painful, unreliable deaths?  It seems like the current owner hasnt rolled the odometer over.  He told me he was selling it because he got a company car and his weekly soccer game that he used to ride it to moved to his neighborhood.  Its like the motorcycle equivalent of a little old lady who only drives her car to the grocery store once a week!

Ed:  I am in Austin, Tejas

Aussie:  Thanks for the heads-up on the fairings, but I cant seem to find your profile on ebay.  US$18 seems like a wildly great deal for a nice fairing, even with outrageous shipping, so if you could point me to the item again, I would greatly appreciate it.  I had sort of hoped for an S fairing too, but I think you confirmed what I suspected:  getting an R90 S fairing onto an R65 is impossible without alot of fabrication.

Thanks for the input, keep it coming!  I'm getting her checked out on Tuesday so I'll keep you all posted.

[aussie]

Hi Hairy

I tried copying the picture but can't add it here.....

You can either try again on eBay - go to the community and type in tbt47 or try this link and scroll down the blue prints on the left.

http://www.ascycles.com/Illustrated_catalog/R65(78-85)/catalog_frameset.html

Failing that I have noticed some photos on this site that show the fairing.
Cheers, aus