Refreshing An Honest Mechanic

[ray23]

As you know I was having the 750 gone through by, a top notch mechanic. What folow is the report he gave me before proceeding:

"This is a Bad news email which pains me to send out, after spending the last 3 days getting the thing to run.

The bike runs now, but has so many things wrong with it I dont want to take your money and repair a bike that will constantly give trouble. this reflects badly on my skills and perfection in my work.

below is a list of the items wrong with the bike. that i have found so far.

1. Coils burnt out, replaced to make bike run cost 3500 bht plus postage

2. Carburetters are from a Yamaha XS550 not from a 750 they will never run smooth and the bike will never tick over, too small for that bike and jetted wrongly

3. rear suspension is bodged with wrong shockers causing the back end to weave all over the place and bottom out as soon as you sit on bike ( total Bodge)

4. neutral safety switch shorting out inside gearbox ( again a complete stip down to fix )

5. many oil leaks from all over engine and basically because no gasgets used when re-asembled ( silicone wont do the trick ) thais do this

6. the biggest problem of all is the whole wiring loom is useless it shorts all over the bike, this is probably the cause of the coils burning out, ( in 35 years of fixing bikes i have never seen such a bodge)

7. live wires have been disconected from ignition igniter and left hanging shorting out the whole bike.

inside headlamp more black tape has been used than ive ever seen to seal twisted together wires. in short the whole bike wants re-wiring. ( expensive job ) assuming i could find a loom or make one even more expensive.

8. Brakes totally useless rear shoes glued together with oil from diff leaking into brakes.

9. headstock bearings shot to bits. this would cause possible tank slappers at very low speeds 80 -100kph

10. right hand fork leg totally up shit creek, leaking at top and seals.

I could go on once i went deeper into bike but I dont see the point this is a 1981 bike which has exceeded its useful life, I strongly suggest you pump no more hard earned funds into this bike.

I understand you love the old girl but there comes a time when enough is enough and finding new parts for a 81 model 750 is gonna be near impossible as they were not a popular model out here.

Please let me know what you want to do but i can tell you now to repair this bike to my standards will cost in excess of 60000 baht assuming i can source the parts, but labour on this bike will be extensive due to ripping it all out and starting again from scratch.

Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news but honesty and integrity are our policy and I will not just bodge for the sake of getting a bike running. it ###### dangerous in the state its in."

Now I don't know about you guys but the mechanics I have met here would have believed they just hit gold, not say a word and continue on knowing you would be back and back again.

What this guy just saved me in money is unblievable, in worrieds and stress you couldn't put a price on that. I'm one these guys who doesn't give up easily. Without his honest advice I could have been in this for years.

As long as this guy is around no one else will work on my bikes.

If anyone wants contact info on him PM me and I will ge it to you

[dvk1951]

Rare indeed, good on you: does he have a brother with a shop in the Pattaya area per chance.

[ray23]

No not the same guy I tried to PM you with some info, but the box is turned off so no could do.

[tutsiwarrior]

yeah...I'd say you lucked out with an honest mechanic...I useta work in a coupla garages around West LA and you wouldn't believe the bullshed that goes on there...

however, while on the subject of parts and rebuilt components, I just had a rebuild done on a 2.0 liter diesel for my 10 y.o. Nissan minivan...there was extensive damage (which is strange as the van had good compression...the reason for the work being a suspected blown head gasket, water in the lube oil) requireing replacement of pistons, connecting rods and the usual crank bearings and rings. The work was done by the brother-in-law and some mechanic buddies of his so I'm sure that we weren't cheated (the wife supervised purchase of parts; pistons and rods from a junk yard in U Thong, new rings and bearings, of course...I supervised the work). I was shocked to find that the parts alone equaled the cost of a re-built short block in California (say' about USD 400 at today's prices). A bubble pack of new gaskets alone cost almost 2k baht!

are me an' Ray victims or is this what to expect for parts in Thailand?

Edited November 17, 2006 by tutsiwarrior

[ray23]

Well in my case the bike is 25 years old, so it would probably be hard to get parts anywhere.

Thai's had worked on the bike until now, they kept it running, for some times as much a month. They did what they know, to them the bike runs thats good enough. More then likely that is how thier customers feel as well.

Had I been given this information a few years back it would have saved me a lot of money and frustration.

There were a lot of lesson in this, including lesson about farrang friends. But I woudl just sound bitter if I wen into them.

I'm not I paid 39K for it in the begginning , book included trying to complete a project. I got very close but in the end, costs simply exceeded any logic. I rode it a fro three yearw, but never really got a good trip out of it, whcih was it was for.

I may recover 20K on it selling it as a parts bike, we will see.

But thanks to this mechanics honesty I will continue on with a newer bike and more then likely get some of those trips.

Thai Style the bike is fixed now, for very little money. It is running just as good a before I had the problems. The mechanic did that for me and again fro very little money. Is it at a level where I would be happy no. The cost of that are far to expensive.

Parts are available here but your right they are not cheap Nor in most cases are they new.

In dealing with motorcycles here new bikes over 200CC can be purchased but at huge costs, or illegal bikes with no book an sometimes they are not cheap either. A recent look at 750 Honda 10 years old 200K ( roughly $5,550.00) with no book, you have rigister it yourself. If you can pull that off another 70K ($1945.00) So a legal ten year old motorcycle ends up costing you $7495.00

Thats a lot of money for a ten year old bike, with no idea as to miles. In the states I know guys who only ride thier bikes in good weather and weekend only, so they can be low mileage for a very long time. That is not the case here, bikes are ridden everyday.

But now before I go tying up a bunch of money I can have someone who really knows what thier doing look at the bike get some honest answers. If I could get three years out of that imagine what I could do with a good bike to start with

So off hand I would say my motorcycle days just got better.

I had taken the bike to Thai's numerous times looking for straight answers never got them, just not a Thai's style to say no.

[Thaicoon]

Well in my case the bike is 25 years old, so it would probably be hard to get parts anywhere.

Thai's had worked on the bike until now, they kept it running, for some times as much a month. They did what they know, to them the bike runs thats good enough. More then likely that is how thier customers feel as well.

Had I been given this information a few years back it would have saved me a lot of money and frustration.

There were a lot of lesson in this, including lesson about farrang friends. But I woudl just sound bitter if I wen into them.

I'm not I paid 39K for it in the begginning , book included trying to complete a project. I got very close but in the end, costs simply exceeded any logic. I rode it a fro three yearw, but never really got a good trip out of it, whcih was it was for.

I may recover 20K on it selling it as a parts bike, we will see.

But thanks to this mechanics honesty I will continue on with a newer bike and more then likely get some of those trips.

Thai Style the bike is fixed now, for very little money. It is running just as good a before I had the problems. The mechanic did that for me and again fro very little money. Is it at a level where I would be happy no. The cost of that are far to expensive.

Parts are available here but your right they are not cheap Nor in most cases are they new.

In dealing with motorcycles here new bikes over 200CC can be purchased but at huge costs, or illegal bikes with no book an sometimes they are not cheap either. A recent look at 750 Honda 10 years old 200K ( roughly $5,550.00) with no book, you have rigister it yourself. If you can pull that off another 70K ($1945.00) So a legal ten year old motorcycle ends up costing you $7495.00

Thats a lot of money for a ten year old bike, with no idea as to miles. In the states I know guys who only ride thier bikes in good weather and weekend only, so they can be low mileage for a very long time. That is not the case here, bikes are ridden everyday.

But now before I go tying up a bunch of money I can have someone who really knows what thier doing look at the bike get some honest answers. If I could get three years out of that imagine what I could do with a good bike to start with

So off hand I would say my motorcycle days just got better.

I had taken the bike to Thai's numerous times looking for straight answers never got them, just not a Thai's style to say no.

Hi Ray,

I have had the same problems with thai mechanics in the past, last guy was in Pattaya, charged me 15,000 baht for parts, when i got back to Buriram, 11 hours, as the bike was not running well pulling to the right, the guy in Pattaya should of had this sorted, took the bike into my Thai mates (Moo) motorcycle shop, he is first class, i showed him the invoice from pattaya, none of the parts i had paid for had been changed, i was really pissed off. next time i am in pattaya, i am paying this guy a visit, Moo in Krasang, totally rebuilt the bike, for 7000 Baht, superb, as you know ray, he looks after my Dragstar, My CBR900 and the custom chopper i had built, i have a new bike to my stable, just bought a really mint Vmax 1200, the wife is playing hel_l, but i cannot get in trouble with a bike with two wheels, better than two legs.