Finally bought one!

[Mulholland]

Finally got my first bike to call my own, a yellow 03, $600 after some haggling, and $50 worth of bits, 2 days after she is home, went from a bike that would only run on full choke and wouldn't ride, to a bike that fires right up on maybe 1/4 choke in 40* weather today, purs like a kitten, and rides awesome. Had to change front fork oil and repair leaking seals, integrated the turns into the rear side pod housings, took an old bolt through bar end and drilled an m8 hole in the brake lever he had broken the tip off of, and have a working brake pedal now... massive clean and adjust on the chain, coolant flush and brake flush, drain and clean carbs then resync... air filter housing broken so I just made temporary pod filters by removing the snorkels and cutting the filter in half and zip-tied the media int ethe channel where the boots fit in the air box, trimmed the excess... they look and fit completely oem. Also had to thoroughly clean the bajezus out of the bike, had been in a barn with chickens roosting on it, and was FULL of spiders... post initial thorough clean I still had a nasty brown recluse come out and sit on the head fairing so I gave her another bath inside all of the fairings with a liberal application of 2 cans of carb clean lol.

I will be purchasing gear of my own and taking my MSF in the next few weeks (possibly this weekend if I can squeeze into a class last minute). I have only ridden my friends 08 vulcan 900 and 09 sv650s... the ninjette falls pretty perfectly between them speed wise (have only ridden them all on closed roads and around a closed down mall local to us to get a feel). The sv's power deliverly can be too abrupt to get used to and I didn't want that much to learn on. This way I can start with baby steps and turn a tidy profit towards a down payment on something else (probably an fz6) in a year or so. The only major issue is the previous owner busted chain and damaged the trans output shaft, knocked a few teeth off, no clue how he managed that...anyone else ever experienced said failure? An undamaged used shaft will cost me $20, about about double that in bearings/misc bits, and a day of work to rebuild it all, but it doesn't seem to affect the bike at all. I put a strobe light on it, it never slips on the inside teeth of the sprocket at all with the missing teeth, so it should be no worse for the wear.

Anyways, if you can't tell, I'm a pretty handy guy so the work doesn't bother me any. I have the tools and wrench skills to do anything and everything on the bike from working on cars, though it's my first bike and first carbs so excited for some new components to tinker with!

Thanks for the wonderful resource!
Richard

[rojoracing53]

Handy is as big an understatement as saying Rossi's an ok rider

With all this handiness at your disposal how is this your first bike, I mean what the hell took you so long to find the correct path in life

Oh yeah welcome

[Motofool]

Congratulations, Richard !!!

[lgk]

Congrats

[csmith12]

Sweet! Interesting... I am with Jason!

[KJohnson21]

[Mulholland]

Thanks for the warm welcome(s)! I am taking the MSF this weekend 8-5 sat and sun so I will be able to ride her next week depending on when my jacket I ordered gets here. Going to have to try out the needle shim mod or get a jet kit though, she's very cold blooded and lean right now (fires right up, just takes forever to come off choke and rev hangs hard)... either way, the last 2 days of tinkering with her in free time has been a blast!

[Snake]

Hello and welcome.