1985 Kawaskai any good?

I saw in our local trader a 1985 Kawasaki 4 cyl 16 valve. It said it
needed work. It did not say anythign else. They want 250 dollars.

I work on cars but never a motorcycle. I thought about getting it as a
project and maybe riding it around to save gas or maybe sell it to make
some money.

What do you think?

 

Go look at it, maybe it's one of those rare deals where somebody really
has no idea what a motorbike is worth and it's been sitting in a garage
wrapped in plastic for years and some old folks just want to get rid of
it so they can store boxes of knick knacks where their deceased son's
motorcycle is at now...

Probably not, though...

At that price, it probably needs major mechanical work in the engine,
new tires, a new seat, the chromed parts are probably all rusty and it
might not even roll into the back of your pickup truck...

You might spend $1000 fixing the mechanical stuff and the cosmetics
would still look like crap...

But you might be able to part it out and sell the parts on eBay if the
model is a popular one. Kawasaki parts are very expensive and people
are always looking for this or that piece to get their old Kawasaki
running...

Riding a motorcycle to save money never works out. They go through
tires and chains so fast that anything you saved on gasoline gets
spent on tires and chains, unless it's some little 400cc commuter
bike...

 

All bikes go through tires and chains like that?

 

Don't waste your time or your money.

 

Like that and worse.

 

No, some have drive shafts. ;-)

My friends are usually amazed when I get more than 10,000 miles from a set
of tires on a regular basis.

They tend to use expensive brake pads, too.

 

Like I said, little 400cc commuter bikes can be economical to ride, you
might get years of service life out of a cheap hard tire and chain,
especially if you oiled the chain a lot...

But you said the 1985 Kawasaki you saw advertised was a 16-valve model.
Kawasaki made inline-4 cylinder engines for the 600cc, 750cc, and 900cc
Ninja sportbike line in 1985, and they also used the 900 Ninja engine
in a dragbike-looking thing called "The Eliminator"...

You can go to www.buykawasaki.com and click on the 'information and
manuals" link and get to the parts diagrams for those models. The
photographs for those models are *not* the actual bikes, they don't
look a bit like what was offered in 1985.

Or you can go to www.partsfish.com and register and then look at parts
diagrams on that site to see what the mechanical parts look like...

The 900cc Ninja in particular is a classic. They were Kawasaki's first
15-valve inline 4 cylinder models and they kicked off the Ninja craze.
We had teenage kids around here that called every sportbike a Ninja,
even if it was made by Honda or Suzuki. The kids would go, "Who-a-a!
Check out the Ninjabike doods!"

The original Ninja 900 was known for quick handling, because it had a
small 16-inch front tire. That tire wore out really fast. You might
have a hard time getting 16 inch tires that fit. Everybody has gone to
17 inch wheels...

If it has good bodywork parts, it might be worth it to buy it for the
bodywork and part it out and sell it on eBay. The Ninja 600's were
bought by a loy of 18 year old kids that rode the piss out of them and
often got theirselves killed by trying stunts they couldn't do,, but
they'd heard about other people stunting so they tried it...

The 600 Ninjas also had 16-inch tires---front and rear. It's hard to
get 16-inch tires that fit and are made of soft sticky rubber...

Since sportbikes are so light, they need soft sticky tires to get
enough traction to go around curves fast. If you're not going around
curves because you live in an area that's all flat with straight roads,
you can use harder tires that will last longer. But, you will meet
people with sportbikes that are going around curves fast, or you might
go out looking for the nearest freeway ramps to try to see how fast you
can take the corners, and pretty soon you will be thinking "If that guy
can do that, so can I!" and then your hard compound high-mileage tires
will get you into a crash...

And chains can get really expensive. The original equipment chains that
come on new bikes cost around $200. They have special wide rubber
o-rings, and by constant cleaning and lubrication I have gotten 18,000
to 19,000 miles out of an original chain...

The aftermarket chains are cheaper, they sell for $75 or $100, and
their claim to fame is that they have "low friction o-rings" to "save
power". The o-rings wear out quickly and the most mileage I've ever
gotten out of an aftermarket o-ring chain is 8,000 miles...

I thought to myself, "This is a bunch of crap, I'll buy a heavy duty
non-o-ring chain and just oil it all the time." That chain only lasted
4,000 miles...

 

Dropped a valve, did it? ;-))