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Previous Owners...

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mrfreyguy

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Ive always had numerous suprises that previous owners have "forgot" to leave out, some bad some good. Just today I was replacing the clutch on my bike and I discovered that there was some water in the oil and the injector pump :toetap05: . It wasnt that bad though cause it gave me something to do :D . Ive also had a very suprising good experiance recently. While inspecting my CB350 kart engine I discovered that the P.O. had prepped the engine perfectly before storage :thumbsup: . After sitting for 10 years it has around 160+ psi of compression! Its always nicce to get something good out of Craigslist.

So I guess the question is, have any of you had any suprising, good, or bad experiances with previous owners? :confused:
 

turbojimmy

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Not with a kart, but with our ''beater" pickup that we bought a couple of years ago. We bought it to tow stuff around. My Grand National seemed to be broken all the time so I wanted something that could tow a car trailer around.

When installing the Class IV hitch, I found that the previous owner "forgot" to tell us that he put bondo on the frame rails to conceal the fact that it had rotted through.

It wasn't too bad, and easy to fix, but it was a crappy thing for the PO to do.

Jim
 

turbojimmy

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And you didnt notice before buying the car there was other tell tale sihns of the car being rotted out?

Yeah, the bed was rotted around the rear wheel arches which is very common. The corners of the cab and fenders were great, though, which was unusual. It's very solid everywhere else, it's just that the frame extension behind the left rear wheel had rotted through right where I needed to bolt the hitch on. He had bondo'd it long enough ago that the dirt had covered it up making it look like the rest of the frame rail.

We got it as a 'winter beater' so it wasn't a big deal. The price was right, particularly for a 4WD truck. It just sits in my driveway most of the time, but when we need it, it has proven to be a great vehicle to have around despite the frame-thing. I just put ladder racks on it over the weekend so I can haul a canoe around. I've towed lots of cars on trailers with it and haven't had any problems. Mechanically, it's been perfect. I do have to deal with the rust before December so I can get it inspected though.
 

brendonv

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When we got my brothers bike we found it was leaking quite a lot of oil. Turns out they put in a helicoil in where the drain plug is and put some epoxy around it as it was cracked but they didnt prep it and the epoxy just pretty much wiped off. So we drained all the oil, left it for a good 3 days, removed the old epoxy with a chisel and hammer and then sanded it back to the nice shiny aluminium, degreased and re applied some chem weld (Selleys Fix it) to it. The other option was to weld it but that required, removing the engine, pretty much stripping the engine back to the block and then weld it.
 

DirtTrackRacer_07

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Are we talking about bad experinces or good experinces?

But i got a funny one

My dad done some tree work for a elderly man and he had an old john deer riding mower sittin in the weeds,so i ask him about it.

He told me that he had put a brand new rear end under it and it had burnt up within a week of him using it.

He told me he was tired of looking at it and said i could have it.:wai:

I looked under it and all it was was the drive belt was shredded. lol

I put a hot battery on it and it fired right up.

Dad has been mowing with it for about three years now mowing yards.

The only thing we have had to do to it is normal maintence.
 

fowler

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i brought a wallet from city beach and it had $5 in it randomly
we also brought a JCB fast trac at a clearing sale only to find somone had run it into a tree at high speed or somthing like that because the mirror on one side was missing and there was a small crack in the window (but who cares) the best part was steering arm was slightly bent and the hydrolic that operates it was F***ed

at a differant clearing sale a friend brought a grader for a cheap price only to find the tranny was gone and the engine was on the way out
he left it on the side of the road cause it wasnt worth fixing it
 

turbojimmy

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I got another one - I can't believe I didn't remember this one earlier....

I have a friend in the salvage biz. I got my Grand National from him. I got a call one day from his son who said he had picked up another Buick. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew it was special.

Turns out it was an '87 Regal Turbo "T". A Grand National, basically, without black paint. This one was maroon with a maroon interior. It was "abandoned" at a service station, who then took over the title. In Pennsylvania, when this happens the car is automatically issued a Salvage title. My brother bought the car and titled it in NJ.

It had a lot of miles on it, but was decently maintained. We found the original window sticker and receipt for every time it visited a shop from 1987 through the present jammed in the glovebox.

Since it was a local car (versus something bought at auction), we asked my buddy what the story with it was. He said that the guy bought it new and ultimately gave it to his son. No one knew where the son was, but the daughter had brought the car to the shop for work. She had been driving it and neglected the obvious signs of a failed turbo. She continued to drive it until there was nothing left of the bearings in the center section and the oil that was supposed to be lubricating the turbo was being pumped directly into the exhaust system. It looked like a mosquito fogger when it ran.

My brother and I put a new turbo on it and cleaned it up. It ran great and my brother had been driving it for several months when he decided to do some interior work. When he removed the console, a large quantity of small plastic bags fell out - each filled with a white, powdery substance. Cocaine, packaged for distribution.

Turns out the original owner's son was in jail on drug offenses. It was "abandoned" because he was incarcerated and his sister didn't want to or couldn't spend the money to fix the car.

The law in NJ allows someone who stumbles across narcotics in such a manner to turn them into the police with no questions asked. Knowing better, I gave the stuff to my attorney who tried to turn it in. The cops grilled him for hours trying to get him to divulge the source. He didn't (though I just did!).

My brother and I laugh all the time when we watch COPS and someone says "That's not mine!" when they find drugs in the car. Could've been us!
 

mrfreyguy

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My brother and I laugh all the time when we watch COPS and someone says "That's not mine!" when they find drugs in the car. Could've been us!

Ya lol. At least you didnt really have to mess with the law. Ive been driving to jordan lately and every time i go there i see a old trans am sitting in the same spot, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm :toetap05:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTbgvwAsCCc
 
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