So I picked up a 2007 CRF450X… It looked to pretty clean, but the guy selling was over three hours away. I texted him and he came down $250 without me even asking. I talked it over with my wife and she shut it down. NO! I texted the guy back and told him what was up and he came down another $200. He said he needed to sell to buy a new work truck. I repitched the idea to my wife with the new lower price and she relented. I texted Mr Seller and he came down another $100 “for gas money” Now I was looking at a $2100 bike, that appeared to be in good condition.
Well, I drove to the seller’s house just north of Dallas and took a look. Hmm, the bike looked pretty good, but there was some caked on red dirt and the chain was way past its use-by-date. There was a damaged oil o-ring, the rear shock was DOA and it ran like poo when cold. I for the first time asked him to come lower, another $100 off he said. $2000 even, and he had a few fluids and things. DONE. we went inside and signed a few things, I gave him $2000 in beautiful fresh $100 bills and I loaded it up. I had a new-to-me CRF450x.
Last week most of my spare time was spent placing orders and researching how I wanted to set it up. Ordered bearings for the steering stem, shock, swingarm, and linkage, Smog block-off, fork and shock rebuild kit, petcock, a few missing bolts, chain, CS and rear sprockets and a slip-on muffler (the stocker was missing the sparky. That will get it rolling for now, later I’ll be looking for better skid plate, 3.2 tank, hand-guards and better headlights.
I did the standard uncorking, open the airbox, rejet the carb and smog block off.
The forks felt OK, but its not that much work to do some preventive maintenance on them, I have to do the rear anyway… I’m going to see how the stock springs feel before getting the “correct” ones on the way.
As I was tearing into the bike I noticed the bolt head had some dirt on them, but the rest of the bolt was spotless. as I tore deeper into the bike I was more and more pleased with its condition. There was a moderate to heavy layer of mud/dirt on the back half of the bike, but it didn’t look like it had been there long and the lack of even light corrosion on bolts and hard to get to places made me smile at my $2000 purchase.
Today I went to do bearings on the back half of the bike, but they were in such good shape I wiped them out, put in some fresh Bel-Ray grease and put it all back together.
After the bearings I decided to pull the shock apart and make sure it didn’t look too bad inside (the rebuild kit costs over half of a clean used shock on Ebay…). Yuk, under the cap was nasty. , the oil had the grey “I used to be Aluminium” color to it. Crap. I pull it the all the way apart into the major assemblies and clear out the body with brake cleaner. There was some wear, but very usable. Once the rebuild kit goes in it should be 100%.
I was out of tools and time for the day. I am still waiting on the 50mm fork wrench and the shock kit to arrive. Amazon Prime is the BEST thing ever.
Time to clean up and meet some friends for pizza.
Making Tracks 