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1st year Drifter 1500
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TOPIC: 1st year Drifter 1500
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
crazy bike, rear fender travels with wheel. custom paint screams "I was wrecked . " but a great attempt by Kaw to redefine Kawa Davidson. I was tempted when they came out, 800 was chain(NONONONO) and 1500 has hydraulic clutch shaft drive. but the Honda won out, due to hydraulic valves. i think the drifter requires valve adjustment?? then came RS.
 
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
brianmac wrote:
crazy bike, rear fender travels with wheel. custom paint screams "I was wrecked . " but a great attempt by Kaw to redefine Kawa Davidson. I was tempted when they came out, 800 was chain(NONONONO) and 1500 has hydraulic clutch shaft drive. but the Honda won out, due to hydraulic valves. i think the drifter requires valve adjustment?? then came RS.



Just curoius why you think a custom paint job means a bike was wrecked. Mine wasnt I just wanted a red bike. Lots of people custom paint bikes and most of them are for reasons other then the bike having been wrecked.
 
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
That was an interesting period for Kawasaki. At that time they'd also come out out with the W650, which was a Triumph knockoff. And it's was brilliant. But they're like unicorns now.



The Drifter was an obvious knockoff of the old Indian and it was beautiful. However, in my humble opinion, there were two glaring issues with the design; [At least on the more desirable 1500] the motor and the shaft drive. While so much attention to detail was spent on the chassis, the motor looks like it was a caricature of a V-twin. Like some kid was drawing from memory. It's how I used to draw them when I was a kid. And that shaft drive, while technologically it has advantages, just didn't fit with the rest of the design.


A third issue, that was more related to the bike it was based on, was that floating rear fender. While it looked cool, it meant you couldn't attach a passenger's seat to it. So the solution was this gawd awful cantilever seat that just looked horrible. It worked on the Indian, because they had those cool fringes and saddle bags to match. They balanced the design, but it wasn't offered on the Kawasaki.

Before I bought my R*, I was THIS close to buying a Drifter. I had money in hand and was test riding one just to be sure it wasn't a clunker. I returned to the guys house with every intention to buy it, but when I pulled in to his driveway he said, "Sorry, someone just called and I sold it to them." WTF?

He actually did me a favor though. If it weren't for him I never have found the R* or this place. And I got the last laugh too. He called me about a month later, asking if I still wanted to buy the bike, but I had my R* by then... What's the old saying? "A bird in the hand..."
 
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Last Edit: 2016/04/03 11:26 By Doc_V.
 


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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
At one time back in the 80's I owned a 1966 Kaw W-1 650. It was a vibrating pc of work. It was a continuous job keeping things from falling off the bike because of the vibration. Even the little Jap with the red locktite & paintbrush that Yamaha uses couldn't help with keeping it together.
 
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
Derailed75 wrote:
brianmac wrote:
crazy bike, rear fender travels with wheel. custom paint screams "I was wrecked . " but a great attempt by Kaw to redefine Kawa Davidson. I was tempted when they came out, 800 was chain(NONONONO) and 1500 has hydraulic clutch shaft drive. but the Honda won out, due to hydraulic valves. i think the drifter requires valve adjustment?? then came RS.



Just curoius why you think a custom paint job means a bike was wrecked. Mine wasnt I just wanted a red bike. Lots of people custom paint bikes and most of them are for reasons other then the bike having been wrecked.


IMO it depends. If the rest of the bike generally looks like a paint job was on par with whatever else the owner was doing, then it's probably just like you where he simply wanted to paint it.

If the bike looks like he wasn't too big on customization, or any complex work, or anything expensive, then I think it's a lot more likely he got it painted because the insurance covered it or something.

Judgement call.
 
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My motorcycle is an extension of my body. I never was very coordinated.
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
There was a period of 8 years that i was not riding. ( in between bikes lol ) Well one day in 08 I see this bike on the lawn of someones house close to home with a for sale sign on it. Had no badges on it and was a repaint. The lines of this bike were unbelievably sexy and pleasing to my eyes. By this time the owner came out to see me in awe of his machine.What make bike is this? Why that is a Yamaha Road Star he says. Never heard of them i said. Ya, This is a 99 the first year they made them he says. Do they still make them? Oh ya still make them he says.Well I was hooked and started looking for new old stock and found mine in the spring of 09 Mort
 
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
Yeah u have to admit factory paint jobs are beautiful why anyone would mess with them I'll never know if you want a red X just buy a red one but I will not buy a bike that's been repainted because there's a strong chance it's been wrecked and they're probably a bunch of people that think the same way you can't see what's under paint I was just watching this show on velocity where they bought a 19 thirties car and they were fixing it for a client they found under the paint primer it had a half inch deep of Bondo in many places and they had to shave it down to the metal but you can't discover that unless you grind it off that's why I won't buy a repaint there's just too many clean bikes out there to take a chance . You want to customize it pinstripe it
 
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Last Edit: 2016/04/03 16:19 By brianmac.
 
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Derailed75 (User)
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
brianmac wrote:
Yeah u have to admit factory paint jobs are beautiful why anyone would mess with them I'll never know if you want a red X just buy a red one but I will not buy a bike that's been repainted because there's a strong chance it's been wrecked and they're probably a bunch of people that think the same way you can't see what's under paint I was just watching this show on velocity where they bought a 19 thirties car and they were fixing it for a client they found under the paint primer it had a half inch deep of Bondo in many places and they had to shave it down to the metal but you can't discover that unless you grind it off that's why I won't buy a repaint there's just too many clean bikes out there to take a chance . You want to customize it pinstripe it


Thats pretty silly I bet less then a 1/4 of the bikes painted have been wrecked.
 
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Re:1st year Drifter 1500 1 Year, 10 Months ago  
To me, a sportbike that has a 'custom' paint job tells me it's been crashed. Very high probability.

A cruiser, not so much. I suppose you never really know.

Usually, if I see a bike (or car) in person, I can tell with pretty good certainty one way or another.
 
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