Recent Projects for the Tail End of Winter, Headed into Spring

We’re headed into Spring now, first day of Spring wasn’t but a couple few days ago at this point, and so winter is over. NOT THAT WE HAD THAT MUCH OF A WINTER. I feel for everyone who spent 2025 looking forward to Ski Season only to be greeted with slopes full of rocks and tree branches. It just sucks. But on to Spring and Summer!

I have, of course, been working on a variety of motorcycles and scooters, some of which we’ll talk about here. If you see your bike, holler! If you don’t, then I must not have had my phone set to camera mode while I was working on it. And by the way, I also do YouTube videos on occasion. You can find my channel here. The channel name is MOTO2N, so if you search by channel on YouTube you can find it like that, too.

Anyway, onto the bikes!

You can barely see them in that shot, but this bike got new frame sliders that I installed. The bike was just about brand new. Although I tend to discourage people from installing frame sliders on their bikes (none of mine have them…), I won’t turn down the chance to install them for money on a customer’s bike. That’s to say I won’t try to talk you out of it. They have their advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, they work OK for low-speed tip-overs, like what might transpire during a parking lot incident, which is where many new riders have the most trouble riding their bikes. I have no such troubles riding my bikes. When I go down, it tends to be at speed at a race track. The bike slides along on its fairings, tearing shit up the entire way, just fine without rolling or the risk of rolling-while-sliding.

If frame sliders make you feel more confident on your bike, install them (or have them installed) and go to town! It’s your bike, your ride, your life, and your decision to ultimately make, just like with everything else related to motorcycling. I like to make fun of people’s gear choices, but that’s just because all of us are just asking to be made fun of with our gear choices. ATGATT? LOL! No gear? ALSO LOL!! Trying to describe some kind of happy medium? Ends in tears. And also LOL. Wear what makes you feel comfortable and confident regardless of who decides to make fun of you. That goes as much for me as for anyone else who might want to make fun of you. I’m rambling now. Let’s look at some scooters!

If memory serves, and it often doesn’t haha, this little scoot only needed its carburetor cleaned to be back on the road in good enough shape to be ridden just about anywhere. These scooters are getting older and older, and parts have become scarce. Certain parts anyway. I can still buy big bore kits for them, but, if you want a stator or a CDI box, all bets are off. They also have this weird problem related to the stator where if part of the stator dies, the bike runs fine, but the headlamp won’t work unless the “flash to pass” button is pressed.

I have yet to teach myself how to rewind stators from scratch. The supply of stators for these bikes has dried up as far as I’m concerned. I tried ordering one out of Germany a couple of years ago, at great expense, only to have it not work in a USDM bike. Fun stuff. I won’t get involved with these bikes if they turn out to be more of a project than I can handle. I simply can’t handle parts availability issues. In order for me to perform a good repair, I have to have good parts. We got lucky with this one, and all it needed was a quick and dirty carburetor cleaning to be back on the road again.

Someone willingly forked over $2500 for this bad boy, according to sources:

That’s an ’03-09, not sure the year exactly Yamaha R6 or R6-S. I believe it was known as the “R6-S” during and after ’06, when the new generation R6 was introduced in 2006. Ahem. It gets confusing. I did a video about it, and I’m still confused. They had carburetors from 1999 to 2002. Then fuel injection from 2003 onward, but the chassis and literally everything else changed in 2006. But the OG 2003 bike “soldiered on” until 2009. I’m explaining this to myself just as much as I am to you! This is an example of one of those second-gen, fuel injected motorcycles made from ’03-09.

And boy-howdy, does it need a lot of work to be steetable! The owner was primarily concerned with the rear brake, so I replaced his master cylinder for him. I don’t think he was thrilled about how much that cost, so I haven’t heard back from him. But the bike also needs new tires, a new ignition, new brakes, chain and sprockets, and the list doesn’t stop. It’s going to take another couple few thousand dollars before this bike is in good enough shape to be ridden farther than around the block. I did get to talking to the owner, and he mentioned that Yamaha R6s of all sorts are something of the “online influencer bike of choice” and that doesn’t surprise me. It’s also the bike people want to race the most, and it’s had more success club racing overall than any other make and model I’d imagine. There are far more Yamahas at the local races than anything else. They command a premium, so people often settle for sub-par examples, which is unfortunate. But it’s not insurmountable. As far gone as this bike is, I’m sure with some more work and parts it can be made into a good example yet again.

To put it mildly, there are more busted up motorcycles and scooters out there than I have the time or willingness to work on, especially when it comes to project bikes that get super-involved with their restorations. And let’s not beat around the bush here, many of the motorcycles I work on need more than a one-off repair. They need extensive work I’m not exactly prepared to do on the spot on a mobile basis. I often recommend these bikes go to shops when I encounter them, and I have a pretty decent list of shops you can check out in the top right corner if you think or suspect your bike might need more work than I can deliver.

All this late-model Indian needed was a competent person to install a battery. I’m always super careful when working on bikes I’d rather not have to replace if something goes wrong, and this Indian definitely qualified. But I still managed to whack a factory-spec battery under its seat without too much headache for the obviously very-busy owner. I often get called to work on bikes when the owner barely has time to meet me, let alone figure out how to repair their own bike. It’s not a matter of being smart of whatever. It’s a matter of having enough time for many people. If you don’t have the time or wherewithal to work on your own bike, and you known it’s something reasonably simple going on with it, then I’m one of the best outfits you can book online to repair it.

Even if it’s something pretty involved, like a carburetor cleaning on a multi-cylinder bike, then I can still perform the work in 2-3 trips usually. Here’s a Triumph I worked on recently:

This old Triumph, and I can’t believe I’m using that word for bikes made during the current century, needed new pipes and its carburetors cleaned in order to be ready for the road. It didn’t actually need new pipes. There was nothing wrong with the OEM pipes fitted to it, but the current owner wanted it to be louder, lighter, and better looking, so he installed new pipes as I cleaned the carburetors and got it going again. The last I heard, this bike was running well enough to be ridden, which gets me to thinking about the nature of carbureted bikes and what they’re good for these days, in the 2020s. Many of these bikes are at least 15 years old, which means seals, linkages, and mechanical assemblies are beginning to dry out and become worn. If they’re on their original tires, then surely those tires need to be replaced. Tire replacements on motorcycles are not a trivial endeavor. They are labor intensive and require considerable skill to complete. The same’s true for the mechanical restoration of the motorcycle’s engine bits. In aggregate, these older bikes have often been sitting for over half of their lives. Carburetors become gunked up. Fuel goes stale and ruins fuel tanks from the inside out. It often takes a lot of work to bring these bikes back to life.

That’s where I come in. If your bike is too far gone, hopefully I’ll be able to tell you that before you become enamored with your project and start spending unreasonable amounts of money on it. If it’s NOT too far gone, with any luck I’ll be able to get it going again for you.

Thanks so much for reading! Check me out on YouTube! Until next time, take it easy and keep the shiny side up!