Restore or Cafe? $250 K100LT ABS

[thetailwind]

Hello, I picked up a $250 1990 K100LT ABS which is not in the best shape and with 90K on the odometer. I'm trying to decide if I should make it a cafe and sell the body parts to fund it. I'm generally against the whole cafe thing, but I bought this to resell and to get it into condition to sell would make a very small profit margin.

The Good:
Newly rebuilt Works rear suspension with remote reservoir (0 miles on it)
Motor runs well.
Has all 3 hard bags and are in good shape.
Brand new windshield
Has a trailer hitch and wiring (simi-rare?)
Brand new tires that I put on it.


The Bad:
missing some body parts like the Battery covers, the speaker trim and would need paint.
Front forks are leaking
ABS does not work. Getting 7 blinks... bad control unit.
80K miles to a perspective buyer may not be appealing.


I have seen some really nice looking cafe/naked K100's. The exposed hunk of a motor is kind of neat.
I have a mig and a tig welder so metal fabrication is not a big deal.
I also have 2 industrial sewing machines so any kind of upholstery would be easy. 
 What would you do? Fix it or Customize it?

[Laitch]

I'm generally against the whole cafe thing, but I bought this to resell and to get it into condition to sell would make a very small profit margin.

You aren't against it if you intend to make one. It's your pile of junk; do what you want with it. :giggles

[thetailwind]

You aren't against it if you intend to make one. It's your pile of junk; do what you want with it. :giggles

I guess what I mean is, I am generally against taking something apart if it is worth something in its original form. Is a bike in the condition I stated worth fixing up? I have seen much better condition bikes like mine going for 1500 to 2500 with significantly less mileage on it. To bring this bike up to the same condition as the aforementioned bikes, it would take tracking down body fairings and then paint as well as solving the ABS issue. I'm not sure if the demand is even there for K bikes to have the audience to sell to.   

[The Mighty Gryphon]

Part it out and scrap the rest.  That would eliminate the need to clog up the forum with more threads about making cappuccino speedos and gear position indicators work. 

Or maybe after you sell off the good stuff you could sell the frame and motor to a cappuccino hacker to do the work.  Will save you a lot of time and work.

[thetailwind]

Part it out and scrap the rest.  That would eliminate the need to clog up the forum with more threads about making cappuccino speedos and gear position indicators work. 

Or maybe after you sell off the good stuff you could sell the frame and motor to a cappuccino hacker to do the work.  Will save you a lot of time and work.

Did someone put some salty caramel in your cafe this morning? 

[The Mighty Gryphon]

As someone who contributes financially to the operation of this forum I sorta resent having to support the bandwidth that provides all the stuff about cappuccino racers.  When I originally came here this was a place where people got together to support their bricks with technical information as well as post photos of the nice places they visited on their bikes.

Now it seems like this is a place for the cafe hackers to hang out to post photos of their cut-off frames and plank seats as well as ask the same questions about how to make their Speedwell speedo work with the GPI so they can start the engine. 

I'm sorry, but I'm beginning to find this place sort of boring.

[thetailwind]

As someone who contributes financially to the operation of this forum I sorta resent having to support the bandwidth that provides all the stuff about cappuccino racers.  When I originally came here this was a place where people got together to support their bricks with technical information as well as post photos of the nice places they visited on their bikes.

Now it seems like this is a place for the cafe hackers to hang out to post photos of their cut-off frames and plank seats as well as ask the same questions about how to make their Speedwell speedo work with the GPI so they can start the engine. 

I'm sorry, but I'm beginning to find this place sort of boring.

It's sort of a double edged thing there. On one side, the original "unmolested" ideology of all things mechanical meet their natural depreciation and you bump up against the "is it worth it" to fix it scenario which will result in dead K bikes. One side of the argument is the original die hard  enthusiast, which I imagine is your perspective and the other is the restomod community which is taking the old and making it new. The community will grow as a result of both but certainly not resentment. I've come here looking to go either route if there is demand for restoration to original is there and there is a market; otherwise, perhaps will jump on the new wave of cafe projects.

I'm really looking for opinion on my situation, not forum drama.

[The Mighty Gryphon]

I'm really looking for opinion on my situation...

And you got mine.

[JPaganel]

If it's beat up, I would think it's fair game for modification.

Here's the thing, though - why does modification always have to be "cafe"?

K bikes are a terrible choice for a cafe racer. They are heavy, and can't really be made that much lighter. Plus, everybody and his brother are cafe-ing bikes left and right.  There are thousands of these "racers" out there. It's to the point where you can buy commercially made body parts for them.  Can't you think of something a bit more original than that?

If you can't, perhaps you should rethink the modification bit.

Disclaimer: this is entirely my not so humble opinion

[thetailwind]

If it's beat up, I would think it's fair game for modification.

Here's the thing, though - why does modification always have to be "cafe"?

K bikes are a terrible choice for a cafe racer. They are heavy, and can't really be made that much lighter. Plus, everybody and his brother are cafe-ing bikes left and right.  There are thousands of these "racers" out there. It's to the point where you can buy commercially made body parts for them.  Can't you think of something a bit more original than that?

If you can't, perhaps you should rethink the modification bit.

Disclaimer: this is entirely my not so humble opinion

You're right. I just used the cafe term because I thought it would give a general idea of the tear down involved. I like the motor and I like the frame. I would want to maximize that. I don't have an image of it in my head yet, but most of it will be hand fabricated since I can sew and weld. I would not be buying prefab stuff for it. What's the fun in that?

[Christopherguzzi]

I'm hoping you're really handy, really creative, have lots of time on your hands, and lots of disposable income, in which case, you should build a really nice and cool street scrambler, that you could put hundreds of hours and around $10,000 into and then sell it to me for about $2,500.


 :hehehe




Seriously though, it sounds like you are handy and like the bones of the bike, so I recommend customizing something to your liking and have fun with it while trying not to go too far over budget. 


 

[Fliegenziegel]

I think it is always the right thing is to maintain in original intended design as one would an airplane. If you are to trust your life to a machine then it is best to have it in the condition it was designed otherwise you may want to part with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scott_]

Now if you are thinking along these lines with custom work:
http://specialks.net/


BTW 'LT's are not that popular to mod, not sure why.

[alexg]

For $250, I would make it road compliant and use it as a daily transport. The sense of satisfaction from a reliable 250$ something is comforting. Going into retirement, so I am practicing being cheap.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scud]

Sell the fancy shock and bags, get all your money back.


Then you can decide to:
1) Part out the rest
2) Do a functional, non-cosmetic, fix and flip (with a cheap, used shock). Somebody will always need a reliable beater-bike to use as a commuter.
3) Lose a lot of time and money trying to sell a custom build


For me, it would come down to 1 or 2 above. If you intended to keep the bike, it might be a different story, because then you'd be building something that you'd want to ride.


I'd lean toward #1 - if you can get about $1,000 out of the most desirable bits, you can scrap the rest and only have invested a few days. Or keep the parts and find another bike that needs some of what you retained.

[Motorhobo]

I'd agree with Scud but I think the parting-out thing is overrated for actual earning potential vis a vis time invested. Are there that many LT riders out there in the market for parts? I wouldn't think there are since most insurance companies would rather total the bike than deal with any kind of body repair on a bike that age.


I like the idea of getting it naked and selling it as a local beater. If you can find a decent windscreen or fairing or even a Parabellum Scout, it would probably be more attractive to buyers than the LT, which has kind of a big, clunky look compared to the naked K-bike. I'have two K75 with no extra fairing stuff other than system cases, an OEM top box and a Parabellum Scout and wouldn't think of an LT for my riding style -- too much extra stuff I don't need in my daily riders.

[Scud]

Parting out is kind of a pain in the ass after you sell the few highly desirable parts. I've parted a K75s, an R1100RT, and a crashed Moto Guzzi V11 LeMans. The Moto Guzzi and the R1100RT were worth the effort. The only reason the K75 worked for me was that I wanted a bunch of parts for my own project. Complete, good condition K-bikes are so cheap and plentiful that there's not a lot of demand for most parts.


But for $250, my suggestion was sell the easy stuff and either:


trash the rest, or
make it beater


Giving it more thought, I agree with Motorhobo:  make it a stripped-down beater-bike. Low budget, quick sale to someone who wants it as a beater or as a functioning platform to do their own cafe project. That way, you can also sell the windshield and any fairing bits that somebody else may have broken.


LT = Light Truck...

[Motorhobo]

+1 what Scud said...another consideration if you're thinking about parting it for profit is you'd better have lots of garage space. I have a K75 stored a bunch of stackable Roughneck totes. They take up a lot of space. Then there's the engine...having all that crap in the garage makes me hyperventilate at the thought of having to move someday.


If you want to make it a beater for sale, you'll need one of those round headlight cans --- can be had cheap on eBay. Strip and sell -- I'd be interested myself if I didn't already have so many totes full of bike parts in the garage.


BTW where in Maryland are you? I'm on the Eastern Shore.

[thetailwind]

I am in Montgomery county near rockville. I'm digging the  naked beater idea.