New bike but not happy with the deal

[Millietant]

No one will give you a guarantee on any bike of that age (a private seller would not even give a guarantee on a 3 year old bike) and that's a risk we take buying old bikes, even +$10,000 bikes.

Given that the seller has no info to back up his claims of the work carried out and that he's only has the bike 6 weeks, I think your suspicions about the bike arm turn out to be correct.

Have you tried to find a Z1000 through the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club in your part of the world?

[Old Rider]

Hi Dean and thanks for some advice. The seller did not have any  receipts of anything that is done on engine or parts or anything else so i told him i skip the deal .When i asked him how it runs on telephone yesterday he says that he has not ride it since the valves was done that is a red flag =) But he sent me a 5 second video of it running ,but could not see the pipes if they smoked I also found when looking at pictures more close that the airbox was matte black it is usually semigloss black and with a seem in the plastic .I asked him about that today and he sayd it was a foil .I did not ask why, but I guess it is because the airbox is cracked or very ugly and that airbox is not easy to find. He did not reply on my request to take it to a workshop for a fast test to se if everything was okay or take a compression test so i drop the deal.I told him to keep the 1000usd and he sayd that he will. So this kawasaki deals starting to get very expensive.Now i have learned i will newer pay a little before i can inspect the bike and see some receipts or pictures of something that is claimed to have been done. Thanks for the tip to find a bike through a vintage Japanese vintage club i will check that out.

[Urx]

 
Um why are you letting him keep your money ?
He is advertising a bike with some claims on work done that he cant back up...

[Old Rider]

It was because when i saw the bike being advertised i was fast to reply that i was interested to buy .It had been advertised for about an hour .The marketplace it was advertised  on has a policy that if you say you will buy you have to buy it .I found out that later.When i first contacted the seller i did it thru the messageservice that is provided on that site/marketplace.He told me to call him and then everything we talked about was on phone.Then he sent me a message via that marketplace a little later that there was another buyer interested and he had offered more for the bike.I then rised my bid ,but the seller told me the other buyer also gawe a higher bid so then i bid more and the other buyer bid over me again.I then told the seller i will not go higher i stopped at 12000 and that my bid will last to midnight.Then next day
the seller called me and told me i could have it for 12000 because the other buyer may not show up  and spoke alot positive things about the bike and i trusted him that the engine had new valves and valvestem seals and stuff and he sendt me some pictures i wanted of the engine.The bike was fitted with a aftermarket 4 into 4 exhaust ,but that did not look good. He had the oem 4 into 2 exhaust ,but told me that i will have to pay more if i wanted to have that included.It is very hard to find the oem 4 into 2 exhaust and i could have sold that to get some money to get the 4 into 4 z900 exhaust i want to install. He wanted me to pay 1000 first for the bike to make sure that i will buy.I got a little tricked because he told me that he wanted me to write on the message service on the marketsite that i was agree to buy the bike for 12000 and pay 1000 first and i did.On the market place you have to be registered and log in with security id and codedevice  and stuff.I was 99% sure i vould buy the bike because of the things he told me about it so i did .He also wanted me to tranfer the money fast via the bank and take a screenshot of the transfer .

Then next day when i checked a little more i  found he had owned the bike just 6 weeks and he had no proof of the engine sevice or any receipts on anything i started to check out the marketplace policy and one of the rules there is that if you say you will buy you have to buy and i just had wrote that in the messaging service on the marketsite.
So everything was done too fast and i should have checked the marketplace policy first.Anyway i told him i will not buy the bike and he can not force me even if the marketplace say you are comitted to buy .To do that he vould have to take the case to cort and dont think he is stupid enough to do that.Anyway he agre to skip the deal and keep the 1000 buck.If he was a fair guy he could just giwe me the money back at least most of it.
It is afterall free to advertise on the marketplace and he also had another buyer or did he   
I have bought several cars and bikes before but then i had the chance to check and test them first .My latest car i took to a mot testing station and got a buyers recomandation test done.

[Old Rider]

Well now i had more luck trying to find a good kawasaki. It is not a kz1000A1 that i have been trying to find,
but when i saw it advertised it looked very nice it is a kz900 1976.
I found the advertise and right away i called the seller and he lives only 7 minutes from where i live ! that was strange. I called the seller and asked if i can come and see it right now and he told me that there was 2 other potential buyers coming to look at it and the advertise had been only a little over an hour old.I run down in my car and drove off i was at him maybe 15 minutes after i found the advertise. He had owned it for 3 years
and told me he know nothing about motorcycles and did only use it a few times .I fired it up and this one also
only run on 3 cyl the seller sayd he did not know that. I then took it for a ride and the cyl 1 did not fire when on higher rpms .Then i rode to a gas station and filled air in front tire and did the spit test spitting in my glowe and touch the downpipes.Nr 1 downpipe did not fret .Then it started raining so i rode back to seller.
then did a quick test to se if plug on nr 1 had spark and it did not spark.I told the seller i buy it anyway.
so after some paperwork the bike was mine!!. It started raining bad so i told him i pick it up next morning.
The next morning the rain was poring down and it was a rainstorm .I even got a emergency warning on phone and it was making a strange alarm sound that has never happened before.It says stay home very heavy rainstorm is coming. =)  so that day i could not bring the bike home then next day it was also raining badly, but on the afternon there was a lilltle better so i desided to hurry and get the kawa home. The bike bacfired and run on 3 so i had to check that.So far i have working on it in my garage drained the carbs into a jar to see if there was alot of crud but it was very little crud and the fuel was browngreen.Then flushed the carbs so maybe if somthing was stuck in the float needle seats got flushed down.Then reset the mixture screws to one and a quarter out.They where 2 and a half out .Then tested compression and that was around 150 psi on cold engine .Replaced the sparkplugs and caps .Tested the coils.Then found something strange the sparkleads was connected in a strange way the left coil was connected to cyl 1 and 3 and th right was connected to 2 and 4 i was thinking that must be wrong. I then called kawasakirolf and he says left coil goes to 1 and 4 and right to 2 and 3.So i did that but then the bike was very hard to start and backfired and stopped. Then i had a look at the ignition timing and found it has a electronic ignition installed. I then just swapped the ht leads so that left coil goes to 2 and 3 and right to 1 and 4 .then the bike fired right up and runs on all 4 with no backfiring. I have testrode the bike yesterday and today and it runs great now with good power and no bacfiring.I will have to double check why it runs good with the coils mounted opposite of what is normal. The clutch is awful it is just on and off
i think it is because i got a pack of new oil and oilfiters with the bike and when looking closer at the oil silikolene 10 40w semisynthetic is says jaso AM2  am 2 is made so the clutch grips hard with no slippage
i think maybe that is the reason the clutch is so grippy with no control over the slippage when using the clutchlever. I will change the oil and se what happens.I also got 2 books and a workshop manual and a kawasaki blanket and kawasaki raincover and a cool poster of the bike also the seller has many recepis of work that had been done ! im very happy i payd 12000 usd for the bike that is a fair price i think.I saw a similar bike asking 17500 usd and that one had some repaired cylinder fins and did not look as good as this.It also have stainless steel spokes installed . i think the exhaust is oem since it got stamped prod year and z 750 /900 on but not sure i will find that out.I dont think i will ride this bike so much and not in rain weaher.

[fj1289]

From the pics it looks like a beautiful example.  Worth the wait and effort

[Urx]

Much better...bet you are glad you took that other one back 8-)

[Millietant]

That is great news - very happy that you finally got a good one 

I recently had the same problems with a Motor Guzzi V1000 California. The owner had installed a new electronic ignition to replace the old points ignition set up, but had put the base plate on 180 degrees out, so he swapped over the wires to the ignition coils.

When I was trouble-shooting why it would not run properly, I found out about this, but also found that the plastic rotor had slipped on the small timing cam because it had not been properly Loctite in place, but also found the new ignition module was not working correctly.

Once I'd replaced the module and fixed a new plastic rotor, I fixed the backing plate in the right place and swapped the wires back over to the ignition coils. After setting the ignition timing, it ran perfectly. 

[Old Rider]

Thanks guys ! Yes im glad the seller of the first bike was agree to drop the deal .The second bike that
i payd 1000bucks in dealmoney is still for sale even the seller told me there was other bidding on it strange 
both those bikes was far away from where i live and vould have to travel far or pay a transportcompany
to bring it home well i payd the seller on the first bike 200 bucks for bringing it and 200 bucks to get it sendt back . Then this bike popped up 5-7minutes away from me and good price to .I think if a have not got
to the seller so fast about 15 minutes it vould have been sold same evening because the seller told me there was other buyers coming to take a look the same evening.The bike has been used very little the last 8 years and the seller told me it was a pitty that the bike is just parked in his garage.
I found a receipts from a workshop 2019 that says it was replaced lots of things rebuildt forks and carbs valve adjusted new carb inntake and airbox boots rebuildt brakecalipers and many other things replaced.
so got really lucky with this one.I found a few things that is not original that is the carbs . They are from a 77 kz1000a1, but the bike runs very good .The rims is not oem ,but they looks new and have stainless spokes installed and tires are new. The exhaust is oem with the stamped numbers and look brand new! and that is almost impossible to find. So far i have changed plugcaps and sparkplugs checked compression changed oil and filter yesterday changed brakefluid and adjusted the clutch screw under the enginecover Checked the coils cleaned up most electrical connectors  Changed the oil to mineral yamalube 10-40w
yesterday after switching to mineral oil i was hoping the clutch got smoother, but so far not any difference or maybe a little better.  Only ridden about one hour after oilchange. will see when  ride the bike more if it gets less grabby .One other thing i found is a little oilleak i think it is just the tahcometer fitting on the engine that is common on these kawasaki i have read now.
Well i think this has to be  enough bragging about my &%4# Kawa

Milletant isn´t it fun when po has done some electrical stuff and forget to tell you  good to here you fixed it
That Moto Guzzi is a cool bike and it is rare here in Norway i think i only seen 3 a white and one blue and a red that was an old version .
I have got confirmed that the strange thing with the placement of plugwires just is because the coils have been
mounted left to right.