Project FZR pt.1: The $200 bike

The fifth member of our little group here, G.B., is a highschool friend of mine who has always been into cars. We have wrenched on my Datsuns, his 80’s Bimmers, his Ford Taurus SHO, and cute little early 80’s Celica of his. Since we graduated college, however, it has been hard for G.B. to have a project. As with me, living in a NYC had pushed working on cars down on the totem pole.

As soon as I told G.B. about this shop, his eyes lit up. He stopped by the next day and when he met the rest of the guys that weekend it was clear that he would be spending a lot of time with us in the shop.

G.B. has never been a motorcycle guy. I have always wanted one, but he usually said that they would be too dangerous for him etc… That lasted about 5 minutes once he saw J.B. and I on our bikes in the shop.

Literally, within one week I was with G.B. in a UHaul truck driving to queens to pick up a $200 1988 Yamaha FZR1000. Yes, $200 is very cheap, even for a non-rideable bike. It turns out that the previous owner parked it on the street only to have a car knock it over. This bent the right clip-on and locked the throttle. The battery was also nearly dead and it had a flat rear tire. We scavenged a plank of wood from a nearby restaurant and rolled the bike into the uhaul. We arrived at the shop to find A.Y. and J.B. working on the door. Here is G.B. on the bike as it stood that night.

The next week, I started trying to get the bike road worthy. First, I pulled the right clip on and removed the brake and throttle to find this.

After some massaging with the torch and some blunt force I got it to look like this.

I put it back on the bike and voila! The throttle worked!

Next I charged up the battery and cranked it fully expecting nothing to happen…but NO! It started fairly easily. I let it warm up a bit and took it for a slow spin around the garage. It definitely has some carburetion issues and doesn’t like to run with the choke off, but it does run.

Next task is to pull the carbs, clean them up and see if we can get this to run smoothly. Here she is as she sits now.

And this is a sight people will be seeing once I get my motorcycle gang together.

-W.W. SBSS