phil conjelko
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- Jun 24, 2019
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Great looking bike, but I am very very leery of buying ANY low mileage vehicle thats older vintage. Internals never really seen operating temperature and may not like it when it finally gets there.
I had a 1987 Caprice that I got in 2001. Had less than 40,000 miles on it. Old lady car. Never saw operating temperature. Fuel gummed around the piston rings when it got hot and lost compression. This was a weenie 4.3L V6 Caprice so it wasnt beat. As a guy who also professionally works on cars, this is extremely common when some dead relative wills a car to a family member just to find out that the first thing you need to do is yank the engine to basically rebuild it cause it sat so long with minimal use. Engines dont like sitting.
Good luck selling buddy. Hope you'll get what you want for it.
I have been working on anything with an engine for over 30 years and have never seen anything like this. Probably goes.along with the mentality that highway miles are better even if the vehicle has 3x the amount of something that has stayed local.
I rode a 7k mile 85 before buying my 2006. Both bikes ran the same. Good luck with the sale. Looks like you have a nice piece.
Eric
"Yamaha combustion chamber cleaner" or "Ringfree". Give 'em a try; they both work so well its incredible.I have been wrenching professionally for 25. Like you, over 30 years with dirtbikes, lawn mowers and nonsense like that. The Caprice was actual first hand experience with a vehicle I knew the history on. The vehicle was bought new in 1987 by a woman in her late 70s. She never really got out often to really drive the car. This was a home to store, home to church car. Couple miles each trip. When she passed away in her 90s, she willed the car to her nephew. He was no kid. Middle aged guy at the time. Began simply using the car. The car developed a misfire that a shop told him that the engine had no compression on one cylinder. So he sold the car to me. I attempted to drive the car home and it eventually died less than a mile from home. Compression test revealed 3 total cylinders with no compression. Yank the engine and tear it down, the dead cylinders had the piston rings seized. At first I thought they were melted, but when I was able to pick one ring out, it was almost like a sticky honey. Smelled like really old burnt fuel. Now, back then, I was still living in New York. So there was most certainly wilder temperature swings than where I live now in the Southwest.
For the highway miles comment, I mean no disrespect by this, there is a little bit of weight to that comment. If you professionally work on vehicles, especially vehicles with timing belts, you will know for a fact that a highway timing belt vehicle will have its belt last longer than a city driven car. This is one example. Another example is most wear inside an engine is created at start up just before oil begins to circulate. Modern engines now have a series of check valves throughout so prevent and minimize this wear, but still happens. Its all common knowledge that hot oil lubricates better than cold oil. Even with the modern advances in todays oil. Its just the nature of the beast. Thermal expansion in engines, as someone who has played with engines know what this means. Get an engine too hot, it wont run for very long without self destructing. Engines that are too cold may not start at all. This one actually happened to a buddy of mine. Wrong choice of vehicle and was the only vehicle in my career that has done this. 1978 Ford F250 300 6 cylinder. It was February and it got bitter cold. He couldnt start it until April when it warmed up. But that example is an exception to the rule.
When I first got into wrenching professionally, I started working with an old RV mechanic. I rebuilt 100s upon 100s of engines under my tenure working with him. Nearly all of them had the same issue. My so and so died, willed this to me and we like to use it. It hasnt ran in X amount of years. Nearly all these RVs were low mileage. Some were obscenely high. Those ones were just worn out. Fast forward nearly 20 years and now I specialize in Euros. Mercedes and Porsche are the biggest culprits when it comes to this, but it seems the longer these engines sits, the more likely you need to pull and rebuild from degraded fluids and combustibles. And while I mean no disrespect, nearly everyone will state that they have been working on something X amount of years. In reality it means nothing when you are not professionally working on other peoples vehicles day in and day out. Its kinda like an old biker saying he has been riding for 50 years but throughout all his bikes through those years, he may have an accumulated 50,000 miles under him. By time I was in my mid 20s, My Virago alone had flipped 100K miles and collectively I was around 200K miles. With a fraction of years, my actual riding experience was 5-10 times more than the guy "riding" for 50 years. If this seems like a personal attack, I apologize. Its more of a statement of my thinking rather than telling you. The magic of text takes out emotion of context in what I say. So it seems like a personal attack rather than explanation when its not.
So, just because you havent seen it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. I have worked in multiple climate environments and seen patterns not native to one area but native to another. Since living in the SW, the frequency of the condition I regularly seen in the NE, has dropped less and less.
I have no opinion on the bike other than it looks like a great bike ......but my opinion on this for sale post is that it's ruined.
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