Tim Grffin
07-15-2011, 03:28 PM
Hello everyone! I just recently bought a 1985 250es big red. I'd like to share my story. The trike was owned by a friend of my aunt and had been in the bushes in her yard for 3 years when I saw it and ask about buying it. After contacting the owner he explained to me that before they left it in the bushes to rust and rot that it would run but only for a short time and would go dead so they just pushed it off in the bushes and forgot about it. He told me that he would sell it to me for $300.00 dollars just to get it out of the aunts way. I then went out and inspected it again trying to decide if this what looked like a piece of Sh** was worth $300.00. The trike looked bad. All the tires were flat and rotten, spider webbs were all over the thing, and I was skeptical that it would ever run. So after my friend and I stood around it for awhile he was on the choke side and reached in and choked it and said heck man turn the key on and kick it one time. Unbelieveably after one kick the trike fired and idled with no smoke. We both were amazed and my aunt standing there watching was exstatic saying I just can't believe it cranked after being there for 3 years. I immediatly realized after it cranked and didn't smoke at all when idling that it may be worth $300.00 so I bought it. We pushed it out of the thicket, aired the tires up and both made a couple short rounds on it. After getting it home I washed it good and realized it wasn't in as bad of shape as we thought. I worked on the trike until 1am that morning and after using a full can of wd-40I had it looking pretty good. The next day I went to the ATV shop and purchased a new air breather, spark plug, inline fuel filter, oil filter, etc and changed all. The next day I made a couple of test runs on it and it died just as explained by the previous owner. I then started inspecting various things and found the carb vent hose completely stopped up with dirt. After clearing the hose the bike fired back up and hasn't missed a lick since. There are still a few minor things I still need to do to the bike like new plastic, battery, and seat recovered but for the most part I think I got a really good bike. I just joined the site and hope that in the future I will be able to complete my few things that need to be done. It's funny when I think about the outcome because I almost didn't buy it but realize now that you can't judge a book by its cover. Hope you all enjoy the story and if anyone can give me a quote on new plastic and size and price of a front tire I would greatly appreciate it.