Thread: Bought Myself a Cycle on Saturday (PICS)

Went out and looked at this beauty last Friday evening. Then on Saturday went back and bought it. Its a 1985 Honda Shadow 700 with only 5,034 miles when I purchased it. It needs a little bit of work such as some carb attention and new fork seals. I have yet to pull plugs and check air filter but will be doing that as well. If anyone has suggestions for cleaning the carbs through adding stuff to the tank let me know. Probably will just do seafoam and gas for now and hope it clears up the stickiness. The RPMs will float when you go to shift as in they will go up to 4k when you pull the clutch and then come down after a few seconds so you can then shift up. Any pointers on that would be great.

Bike in the front is my younger brother's 1986 Honda Shadow 500 that has now about 8000miles. Has just over 6000miles when he bought it in early summer. Mines in the back.

Mine is in the front in this one. That's my bro standing in the corner of the pic.

unless the throttle is sticking then the carbs need to be cleaned. pilot jets clog up real easy.

nice pick up. how much did you pay?

Throttle isn't sticking I already checked that cause my bro had a sticky throttle when he bought his. I paid $1800 cash for it.

Just pull the carbs off and pull them apart and clean them out.

*Pull the carbs off together, pop the bowls off, pull the jets and clean them. Spray some carb cleaner through all the passages and you should be good. Don't separate them if you can help it, make the process much easier.

nice bikes! have fun with them.
im in a toss up between buying an 80's TA and a bike similar to this one...

Thanks for the help everyone. I have heard that when you pull the carbs off you need to get them synced so Im slightly hesitant to go that route. Trying the seafoam route right now which has helped it greatly with acceleration but I will probably end up pulling them off and cleaning them by hand. Probably get it cleaner than just using the seafoam.

Originally Posted by ctracer

nice bikes! have fun with them.
im in a toss up between buying an 80's TA and a bike similar to this one...

I would say go with the bike for now. I really love it and the little bit I have driven it I feel it handles well. The bike will be cheaper for you so you will be able to afford the TA not too long after would be my guess. Otherwise the TA might eat up all your money with gas and all the other essentials.

you don't typically have to sync them unless you seperate them, which is why we told you not to do that.

Yeah don't pull them apart just pull parts off them and clean them

I'm still unfamiliar with the bike but I took the "pull them and pull parts off" as a separation. Sorry for the confusion. I'll look into it more this weekend. This is going to be my winter project as I don't really have time to focus on it too much right now between the college life and bow season.