Hudson’s Rather Random Homepage » Where it all began, the 97 katana 600 finds a new owner.

May 19, 2006

Where it all began, the 97 katana 600 finds a new owner.

Filed under: Random news — Hudson @ 7:16 pm

So, you want to know the story about ‘the bike’, huh? You think you are man enough or WOO(HOO)-man enough to handle ‘the bike’? Well lets just see! (Want to wuss out? Just scroll down to the bottom like a little GIRL, then! You can just look at the pretty pictures, SISSY PANTS!)

About two and a half years ago, before my current living situation, I was stuck at the home of some freak who had a Muppet fetish, renting his master bedroom (complete with ferret poop smell and moronic LAN firewalls that lock you in instead of locking others out.) and getting raped for it, too. I didn’t have a car, I can’t stand the metro busses, and Taxi drivers make me want to go on a rant of untold proportions.

So, Chris and me decided to keep our ears out for a vehicle, used, something that would fit in my somewhat squelched budget. Maybe a fixer upper, since I’m mechanically inclined enough to fix anything if I can do it at a reasonable price.

It took about two weeks before lucky bastard A (Chris) told leather coated lunatic B (me) about well-off senior MS outlook engineer D (whatshisname.) having a Suzuki katana for sale. Bling! Hey, a rocket! I could ride that, its fuel efficient enough and its versatile enough to scoot me around almost anywhere within the range of work travel. Perfect!

Yeah, right. Seems that whatshisname had laid the thing down parking it, or something. In doing so, he fucked up the bike.

Or did he?

We ran out there a few days later to go check this disaster out, he rolled it out of his garage popped the key in it and cranked it. Of course, nothing happened, so any of you who have ever dealt with bikes are already saying ‘Don’t buy it! Don’t! Bad mojo no gogo!’, unfortunately, this is all past tense, so you are too late.

I looked it over, it had seen better days, tail fairing was cracked straight through on the kickstand (riders left for you noobs) side, other fairings were all scuffed and cracked, and they were stock icky blue with even nastier decals still on them. So stock it hurt. It wouldn’t start, it didn’t even try. It looked like ass, and it was the worst color ever.

I asked him what happened to it. OUT came the sob story. He tipped it while putting the kick down, then he tipped it again another time rolling in a parking lot (this is why you put your feet near the ground at slow slow speeds kids.), and then after that one it stopped wanting to start anymore.

Hmm, so no crashes, just noob tips..I asked the guy about the history before that. Said the bike belonged to a cop, and that it was in like-new condition when HE got it off the guy, Hmm..

I asked him for a flashlight next. I got down and dirty with the bike, I got down under the fairings, I checked the tank, I put it in gear and rolled it back and forth a few times, I checked the clutch and how smooth the brakes were. Front tire was flat, but like thats a big deal.

More questions, whats the recent work done on the bike? Apparently he had put on new forks, new brakes, few other things. Mirrors were new, for example.

At that point, I told him I would take it. One thousand dollars later, and it was mine. For you non-bike people out there, thats a 2500 dollar bike, give or take, for less than half the cost, just because he wanted to get rid of it. We rented a truck and drug it off to the pad of Chris. (I lacked a garage at the time.)

A few days later I got to further investigation, I broke out the tools after work and headed over to his place. I spent most of the day stripping away the cracked and beat up fairings, and checking more inside the guts.

To my shock, the frame didn’t even have a scratch on it! Or the engine, or the forks, heck, save for a little rust on the exhaust (who doesn’t have some?) and at the battery pan, the bike was in alarmingly good condition, just also alarmingly DIRTY. It looked like he had been tooling up and down muddy dirt roads for fun on the damn thing. I also found kill switches hidden in the bike, which I didn’t put there, but being as how this bike belonged to a cop, and has evidence of at one point having after market parts on it (the ’stock’ exhaust looked too new, and so did the carbs too), I’ll leave the mathematics on this to you.

I got at least a couple days worth of getting in there and cleaning it and treating what I could, the seat was a little dry, its as good as new now, the grips were a little chapped, also now good as new. I got the bike just in time. I never bothered to put the fairings back on, it wasn’t worth the trouble of fucking with them. The scoop was stuck however, a locked bolt at the belly of the frame. We left it on for the time being, we both did everything short of drilling it out to get it unstuck, with no luck.Then, due to circumstance, I had to leave the bike alone. Chris had picked up a new contract and wasn’t home as much, I had just moved into a new place renting somebody’s very elaborately finished basement and It was too much of a hassle to get to and from the bike to work on it. so..it sat. and sat..

And sat some more. About a year and a half rolled by before I moved into my new place, now with garage door opening and closing action! Three other geeks of various nature followed along and moved in too. We were all pretty busy and strung on cash at first, bills were not on plans and buying the needed things to furnish a house up properly kind of kept our funds on the low side. Another year and some months roll by.

So after about three or so years of buying this thing, I finally notice..Hey! I have time, and some money! I could FIX THE BIKE for summer!! Rawk!

Ironically, about the same time, I also installed this new website here. How handy is that?

Welcome to my bike work log, here are some photos of what the bike looked like when we first got our hands on it. (these were taken at the initial inspection with a ‘good enough’ digital mini cam, sorry they suck, other photos after this step are much nicer.)

Busted tail.