My $568 gz250
 

I picked this 2007 up 2 days ago for 500 bucks with 1700 miles, and the previous owner said it had electrical issues. All I knew was that he said he replaced the stator, but the bike didn’t run. I put it in 5th gear, rolled it around to make sure the engine was free, and l handed him the money then loaded it in my truck. The next day I tried to start it with a battery out of my other bike. It would want to crank over, but would stop about 1 second into it. It sounded like the starter had a load on it. So I pulled the stator cover to look at the starter gears and everything looked fine. Then I decided to try and crank it with the cover off to see what was going on. When I hit the start button it cranked right over with ease. A little more digging and I found that when the previous owner swapped the stator, he used gasket maker instead of an actual gasket. The gasket maker just squeezed out and it was basically metal to metal leaving no room between the rotor, and the stator cover which was causing it to drag, creating a load. A new gasket and 13 bucks later the bike turned over and fired up on the first try. Then I went to advanced auto, bought a 55 dollar batter, charged it up, and went for a ride. 568 dollars into a perfect running and riding bike.

Beautiful! $500 bucks for that, with the windshield too? Nice.

And great job with the quick troubleshooting!

You'll get a lot of good miles out of a bike like that. Here's hoping the SPO didn't do any other "repairs" that'll bite you in the ass, later on.

Yes the windshield came with it too. He bought it from the original owner and swapped the stator. He only had it since the beginning of this summer and put 50 miles on it... at least from what I can tell on the title. I’m definitely going to ride the hell out of it, and my wife has actually taken an interest in it surprisingly. She says it doesn’t feel intimidating like my other bikes do when she sits on them. This would be the perfect bike for her to learn on too. It was cheap and is a perfect beginners bike. If she actually rides it or not, I’m still going to use it to commute and save gas money.

It looks like the bike has been running a little lean based on the color of the muffler. That baby got hot.

I thought the same thing. The rest of the pipe look normal besides the muffler.

Looks fantastic! I love those saddlebags. I've just got some old cheap leather ones from a flea market on mine - they do the job but aren't that great looking. I still need to find a couple windshields or fairings (my wife and I both have gz250's) eventually.

Nice look.