Restoration Projects in hindsight

Many of you enjoyed viewing my progress with the KLR250 I picked up last fall for $200, ultimately turning a beaten down motorcycle that hasn't seen any love in years into a mechanically sound machine that will take me on some exciting adventures this year.
The KLR, for those of you who haven't followed the post, started out like this:

 And ended up looking like this:

 

 Needless to say, winters in NH are long and this was not my first (or last) restoration project. The winter before this one, I was working on a 1983 Honda Shadow VT750C. And while I no longer own that bike, it was one of the more challenging projects to complete.

To begin with, I bought two of those bikes for $500 total off a man, who let them sit in his flooded basement for years. Unknown to me at that time, was the fact that the VT750C was manufactured only for one year before undergoing major design changes due to import tariffs on motorcycles with displacement above 700cc. Honda did not simply change the bore, they also redesigned quite a few components. When I finally started working on the project, I discovered that finding parts would not be easy. Fortunately, I had the spare parts bike to use for what I needed, and what was not salvageable was either modified or repaired. In the end, I spend more time on this project than any other motorcycle project I have ever done. 

This was largely due to a "learning curve" as nothing on this motorcycle was done the "logical" way. There were two cylinders with two spark plugs each; the fuel tank did not gravity feed into the carburetors, but rather into an auxiliary tank under the seat, from which then a fuel pump pushed the gas upwards into the carburetors. I'm used to fuel pumps on fuel-injected machines, but I have never seen one on a carburetor bike before this one. Still, in the end it was a fun project, despite the countless hours and numerous R-rated words coming out of my mouth more frequently than I'd like. 

Once completed, I rode the bike for a few miles here and there, but it never grew on me. And so, rather than having it collect dust in my garage, I sold it.

Here is the Honda looked like when it arrived:

 And once completed:

  So, don't throw your old machines to the landfills -- breathe a new life into them. You'll grow closer and learn something new about your bikes and yourselves.