92 K75 Not Running - Need some advice from some "experts"

[Badger]

Not sure the best place to go for the advice so I'm starting here. I did just a little digging through the forum, but felt it best to make my own post.  FYI I'm in Southern Wisconsin.

To make a long story short I bought my bike for $2,100 about 2 1/2 years ago, commuted to and from work a few dozen times the last two summers (maybe 1000 miles total).  The bike is just short of 70,000 miles right now.  I was riding it early this summer and it started having issues:

I was about a mile or two into my ride home from work and I grabbed the throttle, lost power and the bike died.  After a while I was able to get it restarted but it cranked for quite a while before turning over.  I was about 10 miles from home and limped it back home with the power cutting in and out.  Started it a few days later to see how it ran on a ride around the block. Was at a stop and accelerated through an intersection then heard a loud bang, and some scraping noise, it killed and I rolled it home.  My assumption is that it's catastrophic and the engine is done.

Maybe I got fleeced when I bought the thing but, at the time I thought I was getting an OK deal.   So here's my dilemma I'm not particularly mechanically inclined and I don't have the time I'd like to take on a project.  I wish I had the time, knowledge, and motivation, but that's just not the case.  For several reasons this is creating some stress in my household and I'm looking for some advice. 

I have a few offers in the $500-$650 range for the bike.  I'm trying not to lose too much money. I suspect if I paid someone to do the work it would be expensive to get it going again.  I loved riding it when it ran, it just doesn't anymore. 


What do you think it's worth in not running condition as a whole bike?
Is it time/cost effective to part it out?
Should I get it fixed? What might that cost in a best or worst case scenario?

I can post some better pictures to give you a better idea of the condition, but I'm at work and this is what I have right now.

[pfls]

I would at least pay a mechanic an hour of time to get a diagnosis and an estimate before making a decision.

[Badger]

That's good advice.  Probably should have thought of that one on my own.  Was overthinking it, should start from square one.

[HuckItForward]

I agree with Badger.  If you know what's wrong you can make a better decision and have a better chance of getting a fair price if you decide to sell.

If the diagnosis is catastrophic and it wouldn't increase the household stress, parting it out would give you the best bet of getting your money back.  Speaking as someone who's been doing searching for various parts lately, do a good search for things like the tank, seats, front forks, ABS units, flasher relay, ignition control unit, and you'll quickly see how it would be worth your time.  It would be a shame to see an otherwise nice bike die, but you need to do what's best for you and yours.

Good luck with the diagnosis, hopefully it's something simple.

[Motorhobo]

IMO catasrophic engine failure is unlikely. Can't say it couldn't happen but as long as there was oil in it, it would have to be a big catastrophe to get it to crap out completely.

Maybe you could take some audio of what it sounds like when you try to crank it and put it on YouTube. The loud bang could have been just backfiring due to cylinders not firing. When running on less than one cylinder, it labors and backfires pretty bad. At any rate, whoever is offering you the chump change for the bike just because it doesn't run is a huckster, IMO. I agree that you should get it diagnosed before making any decisions, but try to find a k-bike wrench rather than taking it to the dealer, or at least try to find a dealer that has someone in the house with some experience with 2V K-bikes. BMW jettisoned its old-school wrenches over 10 years ago and most of the techs working there don't have the old-school expertise with these 20+ year old machines.

If the engine is not toast, then it can probably be fixed without too much of an investment in time or resources. I think it would be a big mistake to give it away. Even if you have to put a couple hundred bucks into it to get it running, you can then sell it for near 2K and not take too much of a hit. The 95 has the 50 amp alternator which is in demand and just that seat is worth +$200 not to mention that cool little fairing on the front.

My $0.02...