1998 Connie

[henryb]

My dad is looking at a used 1998 C10 with 9396 miles on it. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive from here, we were gonna head down and look at it tomorrow morning. The bike looks good in the pics and he spoke with the seller...seems legit so far. Is there anything in particular on that YM we should be looking for? It's obviously gonna need tires and possibly some fuel system work.
Thanks,
Henry

[Dan in Grand Rapids]

These bikes are pretty reliable, so I would just ask about the maintenance history (oil changes, valves adjustment ect. Look for leaks (oil, coolant, fork seals).

[Ron Dawg]

Do a search for "hydrolock test." Somewhere you'll find a procedure here or on the other popular COG site where you can find out how to check and see if you have a bike there with a bent rod. Hydrolock occurs on these bikes when the petcock and carb needle(s) fail and a cylinder fills with gas. Then when you try to start it, the engine tries to fire and another cylinder's ignition stroke tries to compress the gas. Since a liquid (gas in this case) is not compressible like air, something has to give and it's the connecting rod. The compression will instantly be off of course, but with a bent rod, the height of the piston will now be changed (made shorter). Read the link and insist on it. You'll have to pull the tank and all four plugs. Read the link. Some bikes apparently run with a slightly bent rod for years, but you're better off knowing if you want to fool with it.

I think this is it: 

http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=272.msg2219#msg2219

Good luck.

[2fast]

That's very low miles, so no doubt it will need carb work at the least. That's the easy part, just mail em to Steve https://sites.google.com/site/shoodabenengineering/ and get em done right. The tank may be rusty, so that can be dealt with at the same time. The hydrolock test should be part of any pre purchase evaluation, in my opinion.