Well Saturday the temperaturefinally broke 40 degrees here in Michigan and I was home for the weekend. I bought my f3 about a month and a half ago and there was ice and snow so I couldn't test ride her, but I also couldn't pass up $1250 for a bike that was, according to the seller, great mechanically just not "the prettiest bike on the road". Flashback.I show up to the guy's house and the bike is already running, I guess I shouldn't have called him to tell him I was close. Anyway so the bike seemed to be running fine, and it went into gear fine, clutch was good, and the throttle was really responsive. I paid him the 1250 cash and hoped he wasn't hiding something. I figured as long as he wasn't hiding anything, 1250 for a 96 F3 with 14k miles was a pretty good deal, considering the cosmetic damage was pretty minor( scratched stator, some scratched plastic, and a torn grip). Fast Forward; Saturday, 3pm.Mostly sunny, 46 degrees.It was the moment of truth;a new set of plugs, and an extremely easy turn signal repair job and she was good to go. It was amazing, I hadn't ridden since last summer on the cruiser and was being extremely gentle especially noting there is still a good amount of gravel on the road in some areas, and pavement is pretty broke up in other spots due to our fun weather pattern over the past couple of months. She stuck to the road every bit as much as I hoped she would, and the engine purred steadily at low rpms andsoared right up to a scream when I rolled on the throttle. I backed off at about 105mph, even though the highway was straight and practically emptyfor another few miles and I was barely topping 7-8k on the tach. That might be a little misrepresented since I was watching the road more than the tach. Temp stayed low the whole time, I didn't expect it to get much over the bottom quarter being a high in the mid-40s. Not even close to going down at any point over the day. Once I had gotten into traffic downtown, cars even stayed a good following distance andit seemed like a good amount of other drivers kept a decent eye out.I didn't hit any curves hard at all, the front tire is new and I would like to get a better feel for the bike anyway. I pulled back in the garage about 6:30pm and shut the door. The ride went better than a could've possibly expected and I was enormously relieved that the bike ran and rode with absolutely no problems. Turns out I did get the deal I was hoping for. I just thought I would share my excitment and good news with everyone, especially since so many posts have been up lately about first rides going sour.

My F3/ Funkenstein (Right off the trailer from the purchase, before I fixed the turn signal, got a new tire, and cleaned her up some)


Lats Summer's cruiser The Shovel (by the way, keep the HD comments to a minimum, I putit together and did the paint work)

 

Sounds like you had a blast. Enjoy the bike and be safe!

 

This will make you feel a bit better.
I bought my 96 F3 at the END of last season for 2 grand. I thought it was like yours, munged up fairings.
Well Turns out my bike cad a cracked lower crank case too. They had a new stator cover on it and *attempted* to aluminum weld the case right. too bad they didnt know how to smooth out a weld for a damn. So the sealing surface was terrible.
Epoxy and silicone all over the engine. I didnt find this out till I rode it a few times.
So then the oil cooler starts leaking all over my exhaust pipes.
Well, 685 dollars later, I have a 98 f3 motor on its way to my house right now, and my fairings are being painted (FOR FREE!!!!) by a friend of mine taking an avaition mechanic class at Lewis University.

Go buy yourself a set of ebay repsol fairings and be happy you got a deal.

 

I am ecstatic, I'm not let down in the slightest. I did think about Repsol fairings but decided I'm going to eventually get new uppers then sand and paint it all as a Red Bull theme.