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K bike ratbike thread - I'll start Sun Apr 22, 2018 1:46 am
duck
Life time member
The only criteria for posting in this thread is that the ratbike has to be rideable.
Was looking through some old K pics today and ran across these. This is 1991 K100LT that I paid a couple hundred bucks for several years back (I paid way too much!) I found it on Craig's List one day listed as "1991 K100 Streetfighter" for the low price of only $1,300,
Although the ride was only a few miles, I did actually ride it home. Fortunately the front brakes kind of worked but the rear rotor was so warped that when I tried it it felt like ABS kicking in. Since the headlight didn't work, I tailgated the car in front of me on the right side so that if a cop came the other way he wouldn't have time to notice the lack of a headlight. Being a K bike though, it actually did start and run pretty well.
Here's the whole bike, in all its glory. No side stand of course. Adds too much weight.
The headlight was a non-working, heavily dented piece of crap. This picture makes it looks much nicer than it really was:
The seat was ripped to shreds. Being a Comfort Seat though, it was a pleasure to sit on. No mounting hardware so the seat was just tied to the bike with a couple of old luggage straps:
The tank was truly a work of art. Covered with peeling rattle-can truck bed liner that wasn't holding up too well. Lots of dents including the whole top of the tank being pushed down a ways. I wondered why the gas cap was backwards. Turns out it was broken and that way it would more or less stay closed when riding.
And whoever "painted" the tank didn't bother to remove the tank from the bike to paint it. There was lots of overspray on the forks and fork trees:
But where this bike really shone was in the rider controls department:
1 - A mirror that was only good for inspecting your left nipple.
2 - The instrument cluster. An LCD bike speedometer. Of course he battery in it was toast so I have no idea if it actually worked or not.
3 - Most of the buttons were missing from the switches. But if you don't have a headlight, turn signals or a horn then I guess you don't need buttons for them either.
4 - Lovely pink Renthal handlebars. I suppose they may have been red at some point in the past. The grip rubbers were worn to the point where they were kind of melted and would stick to your gloves. It did have some nice barbacks though. (How somebody managed to get the clutch and throttle perches onto 1 1/8 bars still mystifies me.)
5 - Badly mangled brake lever with ground up master cylinder.
6 - Incredibly, the bike was not hotwired and the ignition switch actually worked with a key, not a screwdriver.
Now lets take a look at the horribly repainted rear end:
1 - Notice the expired tabs. "So, what paper do you have for this bike?" "I don't have a registration and the salvage title is in Colorado. But here, you can have this expired insurance card from 2007 that I carry around in my wallet. I can mail you the title." "Don't bother."
2 - Tail/ brake light LED license plate frame. It actually worked! Probably one of the more valuable parts on this bike. I actually ended up using that on another of my K bikes.
3 - No tail lighting lens. We'll get to what's there now in the next picture.
4 - Turns signals are long gone. "I just use hand signals."
5 - Not an actual BMW tail cowl roundel. Just some cheap assed sticker.
I lifted off the seat and looked in the tail cowl to find that the tail light was a D Cell Maglite.(That ABS wiring hole is good for something other than wiring.) It was faded but it looked like at some point in time there was a coat of red nail polish on the MagLite lens to make it red. Got to keep things legal, you know.
The bike had come from The Fatherland with ABS but aside from the hole in the tail cowl wedge all traces of that were long gone.
So, that's my contribution to the ratbike thread. Whadda you got?
Was looking through some old K pics today and ran across these. This is 1991 K100LT that I paid a couple hundred bucks for several years back (I paid way too much!) I found it on Craig's List one day listed as "1991 K100 Streetfighter" for the low price of only $1,300,
Although the ride was only a few miles, I did actually ride it home. Fortunately the front brakes kind of worked but the rear rotor was so warped that when I tried it it felt like ABS kicking in. Since the headlight didn't work, I tailgated the car in front of me on the right side so that if a cop came the other way he wouldn't have time to notice the lack of a headlight. Being a K bike though, it actually did start and run pretty well.
Here's the whole bike, in all its glory. No side stand of course. Adds too much weight.
The headlight was a non-working, heavily dented piece of crap. This picture makes it looks much nicer than it really was:
The seat was ripped to shreds. Being a Comfort Seat though, it was a pleasure to sit on. No mounting hardware so the seat was just tied to the bike with a couple of old luggage straps:
The tank was truly a work of art. Covered with peeling rattle-can truck bed liner that wasn't holding up too well. Lots of dents including the whole top of the tank being pushed down a ways. I wondered why the gas cap was backwards. Turns out it was broken and that way it would more or less stay closed when riding.
And whoever "painted" the tank didn't bother to remove the tank from the bike to paint it. There was lots of overspray on the forks and fork trees:
But where this bike really shone was in the rider controls department:
1 - A mirror that was only good for inspecting your left nipple.
2 - The instrument cluster. An LCD bike speedometer. Of course he battery in it was toast so I have no idea if it actually worked or not.
3 - Most of the buttons were missing from the switches. But if you don't have a headlight, turn signals or a horn then I guess you don't need buttons for them either.
4 - Lovely pink Renthal handlebars. I suppose they may have been red at some point in the past. The grip rubbers were worn to the point where they were kind of melted and would stick to your gloves. It did have some nice barbacks though. (How somebody managed to get the clutch and throttle perches onto 1 1/8 bars still mystifies me.)
5 - Badly mangled brake lever with ground up master cylinder.
6 - Incredibly, the bike was not hotwired and the ignition switch actually worked with a key, not a screwdriver.
Now lets take a look at the horribly repainted rear end:
1 - Notice the expired tabs. "So, what paper do you have for this bike?" "I don't have a registration and the salvage title is in Colorado. But here, you can have this expired insurance card from 2007 that I carry around in my wallet. I can mail you the title." "Don't bother."
2 - Tail/ brake light LED license plate frame. It actually worked! Probably one of the more valuable parts on this bike. I actually ended up using that on another of my K bikes.
3 - No tail lighting lens. We'll get to what's there now in the next picture.
4 - Turns signals are long gone. "I just use hand signals."
5 - Not an actual BMW tail cowl roundel. Just some cheap assed sticker.
I lifted off the seat and looked in the tail cowl to find that the tail light was a D Cell Maglite.(That ABS wiring hole is good for something other than wiring.) It was faded but it looked like at some point in time there was a coat of red nail polish on the MagLite lens to make it red. Got to keep things legal, you know.
The bike had come from The Fatherland with ABS but aside from the hole in the tail cowl wedge all traces of that were long gone.
So, that's my contribution to the ratbike thread. Whadda you got?
__________________________________________________
Current stable:
86 Custom K100 (standard fairing, K75 Belly pan, Ceramic chromed engine covers, paralever)
K75 Frankenbrick (Paralever, K11 front end, hybrid ABS, K1100RS fairing, radial tires)
86 K75C Turbo w/ paralever
94 K1100RS
93 K1100LT
91 K1
93 K75S (K11 front end)
91 K75S (K1 front end)
14 Yamaha WR250R
98 Taxi Cab K1200RS
14 K1600GT
