ok so I'm new to the forums and pretty much to riding in general. I've been looking for a bike for a pretty long time now and have had quite a few sell from under me. Well finally I have my motorcycle, and it happens to be a 1989 Hurricane. The story is pretty funny, at least in my opinion, so I'll fill everyone in on how I came to acquire the motorcycle.

About 2 1/2 weeks ago I saw an add in the paper for a 1989 CBR 600 Hurricane for $600. I figured what they heck, I'll call. The guy didn't answer so I left him a message and told him to call me back. Well he never called me (at least not that night) and the next day the ad was gone so I just assumed he sold it. Well now here I am 2 and a half weeks later looking online at a couple bikes I'm thinking of calling on and my phone rings. I answer and the guy says "hey this is so-and-so with the Honda CBR that you called on." So I'm thinking "ok I've called on about 20 in the last month, which one is this?" So he says that it's the one that was advertised for $600 in the paper and his last deal fell through and he was in the process of moving so he needed to get rid of the bike asap. I'll quote him on this one..."I'm desperate to sell it so if you bring 300 bucks I've got the title in my hand and the bike's yours." So my first thought is, greeeeeat this thing's gonna be a beater, but hey, for 300 bucks I might as well go look.

So I get there and to my surprise, it's straight, no dents, no cracks, but alas! not running. The bike looked fine cosmetically (by no means perfect, however...but nothing that wouldn't be easily fixed) but he said it just wouldn't start. Then he mentioned that it had been sitting for about a year before he tried selling it...so it hasn't been started in a year. well gosh, it's hard to leave something sitting that long and expect it to fire right up. but he said that it ran great the last time he rode it, so I'm figuring a trip to my local motorcycle repair place should have the bike running. It's just missing the side fairings (which I'm not looking forward to searching for). So I say to him "here's $100, I'll be back in 30 minutes with a truck." So now I'm the proud owner of a hurricane!

Other than the obvious, it looks like a great starter bike for me. I'm going to drop it off at the motorcycle repair shop here in town and have them go through the carbs, install new filters, change the oil, do all the service stuff and see if they can't get it running like a gem again. If not, I think I have a pretty decent parts bike for $300 .

Anyways, I'm really excited about this because I've been working all summer full time to buy a bike and now I finally have one and have lots of money left over to tinker with it, which is what I love to do. So, hello everyone, I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of me on here form now on . And I'll post some pictures of it soon (right now it's in the back of my truck still).

 

Damb u got a good deal. Even if you cant get it running you could part it out for twice what you paid for it. Enjoy.

-bj

 

Ok here are some pictures...they're photobucket links because I don't have time to resize the pictures right now since I'm at work. But these were taken this morning, still in the truck waiting to be taken to the motorcycle repair shop.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...hurricane1.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...hurricane2.jpg

In reply to Wiley...that's exactly what I had in mind, but I plan on getting it running so I can enjoy it . And wow...I have a friend that lives two doors down from me whose last name happens to be Wiley and he has a 1989 Hurricane...weird...but I live in California so it can't be you [8D]...plus, yours is a '90

 

Congrats on the bike. Sounds alot like my story...

 

update:

I put a new battery in the hurricane and figured I'd try starting it...so it turns over but doesn't fire.

quick question...I wanna pull one of the plugs to see if it's any good but I can't seem to get the socket down in to loosen the plug...any tips?

 

not bad not bad. the plugs are a pain in the ***, they will fit you just have to try really hard, some people sugest removing the radiator from the frame, but i changed mine without having to do that. we could not use a normal spark plug socket, we just used a normal socket and then used the air tubing from a fish tank to slip over the cap and pull them out, im sure fuel line will work as well.

 

where abouts in cali are you?

 

in the central valley...fresno/modesto

to rrasco, thanks for the info...I'd give it a try but I already dropped the bike off at the local motorcycle repair place.

ok so as I'm writing this post the phone rings and my dad answers. It turns out to be the guy at the motorcycle shop...bad news on the bike. He got it running, but there's a bad knocking inside the motor. He said it sounds like a broken rod or possibly a piston and estimated it would cost about $1000 to fix. not sure if this bike is worth the $1000...as you can see, it doesn't look great and I dunno if I'd be getting my money's worth...this sucks, but oh well

 

the worst that could happen is that they take the engine apart and it's as bad as they say. but for the sake of argument you put another $1000 to fix it and who knows, it might run just fine for the rest of the time you have it. but on the otherhand, whoever had it before you may not have treated it very well and it may cost you more than a $1000 and it may be worse than just a rod or a piston. if it's bad, just walk away with the bike and sell it for parts. you'll get your money back, no problem.

 

thats what I plan on doing...who knows what kind of shape the other working parts of the bike are in.

I'm just gonna get away from it while I can be ahead...and there's a 1994 F2 on craigs list I might go look at...maybe that'll work out :/