How Much Money Can I Make Flipping This Old Yamaha?

In this trailer we have a bike to flip. This is the 1987 Yamaha FJ 1200. We found this sitting in the garage three hours south of here. It hasn't been running in 20 years until we got it. Now it's time to get it riding and see if we can flip it. Money doesn't go as far these days. What used to buy you this now buys you this. We bought this bike for $1,400 and I think if I can make it a good running riding motorcycle it's going to be worth a lot more. Flipping bikes can be a great way to earn some extra cash. Or is it? I don't know. But let's dig into this bike and see if we can flip it for a profit. Now I know for a fact we can't sell this bike for a profit unless it's running. So the first thing we have to do is get it running and dial this bike in so it's ready for the buyer. Okay so this thing's been sitting in the garage for like 20 years and we have a rusty fuel tank. We cleaned it out with a garden hose to see if we could get the bike at least running off the tank and it worked for a couple minutes. I got to ride it for a couple feet. But now it's time to actually oh that's the helmet lock. Okay right yeah okay so that's not where the key goes. What you looking for? I'm looking for a way to take the seat off. Does this do go two ways? I would think so but that's the lock for this. Hardest part about being a motorcycle mechanic is figuring out how to pull the seat off. Is that true? Yeah it is. Oh for crying out loud. Yeah look here found it. See it's tucked up in here. Oh who's gonna? Is there one on each side? Look there's one on each side. Wait what if you also had to twist that key? You do. Oh you do. Okay as you'll see that is going to be the hardest part. Let's see what it looks like in the tank after trying to ride it. That's what we were trying to run it on. Oh that's bad. That is bad. That didn't work. It did run good though when I had the uh IV bottle hooked to it. Let's suck it out. Oh that's like sludge. There's a couple ways to clean rust out of a tank. Vinegar is one way. Smells your shop up though. I think today I'm gonna try evaporust. All right let's see what we can do here. You would think for with all the workbenches we have we'd have a clean area to set this. It's actually not too bad now that all the big chunks are out. Here look in there. Better? Better yeah. Seeing some metal in there. It's not all rust. So yeah let's fill it up and see what we can do. Wow I didn't think that was ever gonna end. Slosh it around. We'll do this throughout the course of the day. So what we need to do. We have everything opened up. We're gonna get the battery on a charger. Gonna replace spark plugs. Replace fuel line. Clean. These are K&N filters. We're gonna get those clean. I'm gonna check the carbs to make sure we didn't do anything stupid when putting that fuel through them. We did have some filters on it so they should be okay. And what else do we need to do? Get it cleaned up a little bit. We need tires and that's gonna be a little tricky because this bike actually has 16 inch wheels. Those tires are not quite as common these days as like the 17s but we'll go over that. Oh oil change. Gotta do an oil change. Check the brakes. The fork seals didn't seem leaky. I want to put a new screw in there. But you don't want it to do that. I don't want it to do that anymore. It should be more like this. Let's see here. Oil. You know what? The drain bolt's up here and this Kerker exhaust, how awesome it is, covers the drain bolt. Look drain bolt's in there and there's no way to get to it. It's that silver piece. Oh yeah. You see my finger? You can barely make it out. Okay. Well this is where we realize we have to pull the exhaust to get to the drain bolt. Yes. That's awful. That's what I was hoping. I was really hoping that was gonna happen. That's okay. That is awful. In fairness, stock pipes you're okay. There's a gap there that you can get to the drain bolt. On aftermarket pipes, on aftermarket pipes, it's just the price you have, you know. It's just the price you pay for being cool. Was it worth it for the Kerker pipes? They do sound pretty awesome. These are really nice. Not all scuffed up and beat up. This is a clean bike so it's gonna make it a good flipper. Somebody's gonna see this and appreciate it. No test. There's no test riding. You get to ride it when you buy it. It's like all I want to do is change the oil, you know. All right let's see if we can work with that. It's gonna drain all over the exhaust but we can clean that up. I'm looking at this gear shifting mechanism and it shows one through five. I forgot this is a five speed. What that means is when you're riding you're always looking for sixth gear. It's never there. All right I'm gonna stop. That's the messiest oil change in the history of oil changes. Uh-oh it's gonna fill up that pan. Whoa! I like rolling them dice. Let's see if I can push it out of the way without spilling it everywhere. Look at that. There's actually an update or a mod you can do with these where it replaces this filter housing and this cartridge style filter with a spin on a regular spin on. So you don't have to do this when you do an oil change. It's a nice setup but this works just as good too. Okay so we're gonna let that drain. Let's check in on the tank. See how the tank's... Let's check in on the tank and see how the checks... You good? Checks the tank is doing. Let's check in on the tank and see how the tank is doing. Okay it still kind of looks the same. We're gonna swoosh it around. Do the tank jiggle Craig. It's pulling off some some more pieces of rust. We'll just keep at it. Okay so my tire options are a little limited with these being 16 inch. There's one, two, three, four, five, six. There's seven pages of 17 inch tires to pick from. And here there's one, two, three pages of 16 inch tires to choose from. We need to start laying some numbers out on the whiteboard and to see if this bike is gonna be profitable. We have the bike. The bike cost us $1,200. We got some extra parts with the bike but gave an extra 200 bucks for this lower front fairing. You see these bikes here you get kind of two different options. You could buy this fairing and this fairing actually covers and comes all the way up to here. So it covers this and makes the bike look a whole lot sportier. The other option is this short fairing. See the difference? That fairing is not easy to find. I spent $200 on that lower fairing. Now the other thing you have to take into account when you're doing a project like this is time. This bike was three hours away. That's a six hour round trip. You're with the guy for say what half an hour to do the uh you know shake hands do the deal that sort of thing. Six and a half hours. That's just picking the bike up and getting it back to here. Okay then we have the purchase of the bike. We bought the fairing. We're in it for $1,400. Now you need to pay tax on that. Here in Pennsylvania the tax rate's six percent. Tax is going to be $72. I need to get the title into my name so that's why I'm going to pay the tax. I'm I don't have to buy registration in a plate if my plan is to sell it. Until you do the notary and all that title fees are going to cost $100. $16 for spark plugs. Until you go to the notary and do all that stuff that's going to be another hour. Oil. Four quarts of oil. It's going to be probably close to seven bucks a quart. So this is where some decision making comes and if you're looking to flip bikes for a profit you have to know where to start, where to stop, where to spend your money, and where not to spend your money. So we can go with a less expensive. Okay we have a more expensive tire. That's how I'm designating that. That's two dollar signs versus one. See where I'm going? So these tires the more expensive tires are a dedicated sport touring tire. It's kind of what belongs on this motorcycle. These tires up here the less expensive tires I can already tell you their load and speed rating is less and it's more of a hodgepodge mix match of tires. Let's see what our numbers can justify. I think this bike all set and running I think the bike's worth $2,750. I don't know if it's worth $2,750 it's probably actually worth about $2,500. So you list it for $2,750 but you know in the back of your mind you're going to take $2,500 for it. So now we need to do some math here. That's a difference of $185.08. So when you're looking to list this bike and sell this bike you have to kind of decide which direction you want to go. If you go with the more expensive tires you have the peace of mind when you're talking to the potential buyer you can say hey it has new tires and not only does it have new tires it has good tires it has the tires that should be on this bike you know it's a selling feature. If you go with the less expensive tires you're probably going to say something more along the lines like hey it has new tires and then you shut your mouth. The other thing to keep in mind is if a rider finds this bike and is interested in this bike he may have a preference on his tires. He may say I don't like these tires and I'm going to put something else on them anyway. So now you just spent an extra $185 on an item or on two items that the potential buyer could potentially change anyway and it doesn't matter. So this is where you have to start making some decisions and deciding how you want to sell the bike and how you want to present it to a potential buyer. So in our case we don't have a whole lot of profit margin in this bike. For this exercise let's take the expensive tires for funsies $2,059. So that's going to leave us until we're all said and done with about $400 of potential profit. Now if we put the less expensive tires on sell the bike as hey it's got new rubber and shut up now we're gonna have $1,874. So that leaves us the potential to make $625 give or take you know. Now the other thing you have to keep in mind is if you're doing this in your garage and you're not all set up like we are and you have a tire machine or the tools to change tires and balance tires and do all of that you're probably going to pull your wheels or take your whole bike or whatever to the shop to have them do it if you don't feel comfortable doing it. That is also going to add on some extra expense. So you could be looking at $100 to switch your front and your rear tire $50 a piece I don't know I'm close there. We're getting right up against this. Now let's talk time. Right now we're at seven and a half hours. Change the oil we're going to give it a service two hours into a service. So we take the time to clean the tank go through check the carbs replace all the fuel line do all that stuff we're probably in it again for another two hours. Now we have to do the tires. So either we're going to pull the tires here in the shop or you're going to pull the wheels and you're going to take your wheels down to the shop and have them mount and balance or you're going to take your whole bike down to the shop and have them mount and balance. Either way you look at that you're probably at what let's call it an hour and a half. So we're going to have at least an hour and a half into the tires. Okay so we have 13 hours and that's 13 hours to just get this bike to the point where we can go and take it for a safe test ride or think about listing it. Now if there's one thing I'm sure of I know this list isn't going to stop here. I would say we would add 20% realistically we're going to run into things fuel line maybe a petcock repair kit. I think adding 20% is maybe even a little on the conservative side. I mean this is an extra 400 bucks. Our profit is pretty much a non-existent and we're also going to probably have more than 13 hours into it until it's all said and done. So this is all the stuff you have to take into account when you're looking at a project or you're looking at a potential flipper bike. So all that said I don't know I feel like we go with the cheaper tires. I mean you gave a pretty good argument. To go with cheaper tires? To go with cheaper tires. Cool now these have been soaking for a while so let's get these over to the sink we'll get these rinsed out and drying so then tomorrow morning we can oil them up and put these back on. Let's put the exhaust back on fill it up with oil try to start it again hook the IV bottle to it get some good gas to it and maybe we'll just let it cook off a hair see what happens take it as it comes. You just want to hear it start again. I do. I'm in love with these Kerkers. So while we have everything this far open the tires coming off anyway to get replaced yeah I'm gonna clean and lube that chain a while. Stuff starts to stink doesn't it? It's like burning my eyes. Whenever you're changing or whenever you're cleaning chain and sprocket and stuff like this like I'm not taking the tire and spinning it this way and holding the rag because if something grabs and pulls my finger in here holy mackerel that'll take your fingers off quicker than you know what'll happen. Obviously the thing you never want to do is start the bike put it in gear and use that to like hold a rag here and clean your chain that will definitely take fingers off yeah chain is clean and lubed okay so all of that's tight new filters on exhaust drain bolt put some oil in it okay I'm a skosh high on the oil right now but I'll probably end up putting some more in after it gets through the system fills up that filter battery showing a good full charge I'm going to turn this on let's make sure all the lights work we're going to start with the horn okay that works looks like a headlights on high beam does the high beam indicator work yes neutral light's working left turn yep right turn and I got a right turn back here I got tail light maybe got a sticky brake switch here let's see can I get anything out of the front is that working at all there yeah see that can be adjusted here right here's the rear brake switch so you see this little linkage here okay this is attached to the brake pedal right up here where my finger is so when I move the brake pedal it's moving this linkage this linkage is attached to this spring this spring is attached to this black piece and that is our brake switch so when I pull this I'm not seeing the light on but when I pull it here I'm seeing the light so I should be able to if I just turn this nut that's moving my brake switch back so now when I step on the brake we have brake lights right yep okay how about in the front front brake do we have lights there nothing so we could have a bum front brake switch let's see what we got here Sarah see if we have brake lights Dan yes we have brake light yes so I have to look into that switch might need a new switch that would be one more thing that needs to get added to our whiteboard lowering our potential profit if I loosen that maybe I can rotate the switch up and I'll pull the brake lever there's our switch it's really tiny that's the switch when you pull your brake lever in it makes contact there we'll put a multimeter on there and play with the switch maybe we just have a dirty switch that would be really awesome oh let's see we'll put that to continuity so when these touch we get a tone polarity doesn't matter we're doing continuity so it doesn't matter what you put where so right now there's continuity going through the switch so maybe this is a normally closed switch and then it opens when we press the brake lever because it could also be set up that way I think that switch is just a little sticky you know what works good for cleaning switches wd-40 what works good for cleaning everything else yeah every single thing you ever wanted to clean okay I think we saved ourselves probably 26 dollars nice let's put this all back together and see if it works there we go I'm liking it watch that Dan on on on very nice very nice very nice okay so that's fixed it didn't cost us anything just about 10 minutes worth of work so all the lights are working the horn's working oil's changed air filters are drying so we can oil them tires are coming chain is lubed cleaned and lubed the tank that's right I forgot we were we were the tank was rusty oh it's probably done we'll look at it okay well it looks like mud oh yeah shake the mud I think we're getting places the next thing is maybe we want to soak it like like upside down upside down we'll let it soak for that like that for a little bit this thing has been sitting for a few days I've been rotating it and I'm anxious to see what uh what it looks like on the inside what did I use I even forget what I use evaporust the CRC so that's just been hanging out in there look at that Dan all right I'm gonna siphon this out I think everything's loose so I'm anxious to like get this stuff out give it a good rinse and I don't know see what it looks like there's a lot of different ways to clean fuel tanks if you read the comments from the last video a lot of people suggest rocks or chain and nuts and bolts and I've done all that and it works we hopefully don't have to go there with this one if we do we do but let's see what it cleans up like Christmas time is coming in classic bearded mechanic Christmas song coming out on carb tunes that is just rust and see the little granules my reason behind using this instead of vinegar which I've used in the past is because this doesn't smell like vinegar which I think is a good thing and it's reusable so I mean I know it's reusable when you soak a rusty wrench in it we'll see what happens when you soak a rusty gas tank in it for a few days all right well I think we have enough because this is almost full let's take a look that looks so much better and that's there's just a lot of gunk laying in there yet once it's uh rinsed out which I'm gonna do next it's gonna look way better I'm gonna pull the petcock yeah the tank looks pretty decent let's for the sake of flushing pull this to the sending unit then you realize they chose a float that is the exact same size as the hole this is where we find out the hose is frozen who froze the house that could be a Christmas song for carb tunes who froze the hose I'm seeing water come out of the vent down here so that's good that means our vents not clogged just a little work this thing's gonna clean up really nice dude I'm anxious let's go see what this looks like it's like brand new oh yeah so when we're trying to get this running in the driveway I knew we were pushing our luck with all the rust in the gas tank but I wanted to see if I'd get the thing to fire up and run little did I know or actually I knew it all along I was just creating more work for myself because now I do need to pull these carburetors out and open them up and give them a good cleaning because who knows what kind of garbage we put down through there okay so this is interesting last time this bike was running I kind of had the feeling it wasn't running on all four cylinders so we have an obvious problem here we have fuel in these two carbs and we do not have fuel in these two carbs so that means we're probably plugged up somewhere here on the inlet side of things that's my guess here let's see what happens no but I'm not doing that anymore we're just going to pull these apart and see what we can figure out you don't want to put your mouth on them no I'm done putting my mouth on them it's a tight one there it goes now I should be able to blow through there right right right into my face balls shut your hole Dan editor remember that time when Craig said he wasn't gonna put his mouth on the carbs no but I'm not doing that anymore I'm done putting my mouth on them those were good times that was by far the not smartest thing I've done all day I thought for sure that would clean my glasses better there we go enough screwing around automatic center punches work great for pulling these slide pins okay so we have fuel in two out of four we're gonna pull all the jets while we're in here pilot jets main jets air jets jumbo jets private jets yep plugged yep plugged okay so it's good we're doing this main jets are normally open but this one here's a little restricted here Dan now look at this one yeah so get those cleaned out we'll go through these carb bodies and get all that stuff cleaned out good we'll throw them back on the bike this thing will be ready to fire up I think all right let's throw these things back together these carbs were apart a few times judging by these jets and how beat up these screwdriver slots are I'm going to clean off all the needles and I'm going to clean out the float bowls let's clean these float bowls out yeah yeah see look at that crap all right I just want to make sure that these holes here are open clean carburetors got to make sure all the passages are open not just most of them this is a little interesting I'm not sure I ever saw allen headed screws for float bowl screws generally they're phillips but yeah this does same thing okay carbs are done throw them back in set these up here for now let's get these boots opened up a little further air boots and air boot clamps are always something you want to look at see this one okay look here there's a groove see that notch that notch sits into that little piece just like that just like that see how this one here's off when that tightens you want that sitting in the right spot that's not sitting in the right spot things won't seal right and if things don't seal right you get air leaks and if you get air leaks you have an engine that's not running well now we're going to heat these up a bit make them nice and pliable again all right Dan I'm going to push on that side again you knew it was coming yeah all right kind of work that top in there there we go oh that was a lot easier yep so much more easier a little more free play there than I like on this one so what I'm doing is see that free play in the throttle before it starts lifting or opening the slot opening the butterflies that free play there's a measurement for that in the book and you want to get that set and that measurements are really good like starting point but a lot of guys once you're riding for a while you kind of start figuring out where you like that and you can adjust it to suit you and your riding kind of like mine it's still still a little much so we get them close down here and then we fine tune it up here all right now while we're here we're going to throw new plugs in it I'm excited to hear this thing run now okay boom boom boom next we're gonna oil these air filters and we're gonna put them on I'm starting to see a trend here every cheap bike we buy for a project has pod filters why is that you saying something about air boxes yeah like what happens like where do all the air boxes go well I know where you wanted to put that triumph air box no joke dude oh there's that fuel okay so we need this this is going to be an important piece of lost that I didn't know where it was for a little bit I don't know if that's considered lost or not we need to get this all taken apart these lines are not worth seeing so we're going to make our own okay fuel filter fuel line I'm going to make sure I like the way this fuel line fits put this here so let me grab a couple fuel line clamps now let's see do these filters clear that okay so far so good just for consistency let's put these filters on so now we just need one to the filter and then fuel filter here run a line up to the petcock from there I want to get some gas to this bike and I want to hear it actually run and run well okay now if you're watching this send me one of those fancy IV bottle holders so I don't have to keep strapping this thing all over stupid places make my life a whole lot really let's get this table cleaned off and we're gonna fire up this bike and we're gonna run off that IV bottle we have clean carburetors we have fresh oil we have new plugs we have a charged battery new fuel line fresh fuel yeah let's see if this thing will fire up and purr like the kitten it should sound like a plan Dan oh it's a plan okay let's put some fuel to this thing get fire up I'm gonna block that vent hose there for a second this is what goes into the petcock this line here but it's going into the intake track so if we leave this open it's going to be sucking air and it's not going to run right so we need to make sure we block that off everything else is blocked off fuel is on Dan can you hit that fuel on on that okay so choke key on start okay so we have to adjust idle that's easy to do I like it let's turn this leaky mess off running on all four it's good we need to give this idle a couple turns because right now as soon as you let go of the throttle it just shuts right off and that's because the idle screw is all the way back down so the next step is we're gonna set our idle make sure that's all good we're gonna sync the carburetors so that they're all set and then we're gonna do tires then throw the tank on and this thing is going to be ready to lift so this tire here we go Dan if you want to see how to change a tire without using a tire machine there's a great video of yours truly explaining how to do that on another motorcycle channel but since this isn't that video and I have a tire machine I'm gonna use it and with the new set of tires installed it was time to move on to more important stuff like which lower fairing to use then back to that pesky gas tank I cleaned out the petcock and installed new diaphragms along with new fuel line fuel filter now all that's left to do is put the tank back on hook up the fuel line and for the first time in a long time this bike is going to be ready for the road I hope okay this is the first startup on the clean tank clean carburetors can't beat that I believe we got ourselves a bike we can list but first we got to test ride it make sure everything checks out and it's safe for the next person let's get geared up and do that so best I can tell this bike has been sitting for 20 years give or take a little attention to the fuel tank went through the carburetors put fresh tires on bled out the brakes with new fluid it is running like a dream I'll try it it's only five speed I keep looking for that sick gear revving out good engine feels really strong it shifts nice the brakes are working really well I'm happy with the way this bike turned out now that we have the bike running and it's ready to sell let's go back to the board and figure out where we are I decided we were going to go with the less expensive rubber that's for the front and the rear and that did not include any mounting and balancing because I did that here in the shop $1,876 right yeah now I didn't put filter here because there was an oil filter in the box when we got the bike so for this one here that was actually a freebie then we have a couple other ancillary things like we have some we have some carburetor cleaner we have gas we have brake fluid wheel weight stuff like that I don't know how crazy do you want to get there I know how crazy that was $24 worth of stuff so now that equals $1,900 so we're into this bike for $1,900 let's take a look at our time six and a half hours to pick up the bike it took an hour at the notary it took us about two hours to clean the filters change the oil that sort of thing tank and fuel supply we put two hours we actually undershot that till we were all said and done we were doubled that and we were at like four hours tires didn't take quite as long as I thought those actually took like an hour and what the heck let's just call it an hour so we have 14 and a half hours into this bike that was from the time we left to go pick it up to the time we have it ready to sell now that does not include any time for listing it answering emails phone calls meeting with people that sort of thing I'm guessing we could add in a whole nother I don't know until you're said and done listing it with the pictures and the description and answering the emails and all that you're probably going to have another three and a half hours or so into it so we're going to have about 18 hours into it all said and done that's close so if we sell the bike for $2,500 we have $1,900 in it that's leaving us a profit of $600 that is $33 per hour that's not bad that's that's not bad now you have to decide if that's worth it for you and if that's worth it to you but when you're doing stuff like this there's a saying and it always always rings true this goes for any time you're buying something and you want to flip it buy it for resale or just buying it in general here's what the saying is you make your money when you buy it that bugs me okay so what this means is the bike is only worth so much and it's only ever going to be worth so much it doesn't matter how much money you pour into it how many new parts all that sort of stuff there is a limit to how much the bike's worth your profit comes when you buy the bike keep that in mind when you're negotiating to buy something you make your money when you buy it anytime you can lower this initial buying price all of that goes directly to the bottom line so keep that in mind you always make your money when you buy it not when you sell it and if you keep that in mind you can be successful at this too okay so now that we have an idea of what we're shooting for let's take some pictures and get this bike listed so when you're taking pictures for a listing take your time and get the best pictures you can the better the pictures the more attention it's going to get and the better chance you're going to have of getting your asking price another pro tip when you're taking your pictures if there's any add-ons to the bike make sure you show them so in this instance i'm going to show a picture of the tall windshield and i'm also going to get pictures of the kirker exhaust and even though i'm going to put it in the listing i am going to get pictures of the new tires oh i'm going to get artsy with this one make it look like it's in a wheat field back up a little bit okay so not only do you want to get good pictures you also want to get very accurate pictures so if there are any blemishes on the bike you might as well show them too because the last thing you want is a guy driving from a few hours away to get here to see your bike only for it to not be exactly what he was thinking it was going to be and it's actually rougher if anything you want to do it the other way where you want to make your pictures look a little worse than the bike actually is so that when they come and see it they're pleasantly surprised other than being upset so on this bike here this larger lower fairing doesn't line up real well here so i'm going to take a picture of that and i'm going to take a picture of this peeling paint and i'm going to take a picture of the wheels here where the powder coating is coming off the other thing you can do especially with marketplaces they now allow you to take a short video so you can take a video of the bike firing up and running you can do a walk around video all sorts of stuff like that they have that tool available for you to use you might as well use it it is going to help you sell the bike the one thing you'll see in a lot of facebook videos before they start their bike in the video they all grab the exhaust pipe they want to prove to you that it's a cold startup my fingers don't really burn anymore so i can touch a hot exhaust but here i'll show you what they do come in here and they grab the pipe so you know it's cold so now that we have good pictures and we took a video of the bike it's time to sit down and do the listing okay so we can add our video we're going to add our pictures always want the first picture to be your best picture and if they allow you to use 20 pictures use 20 pictures don't be that guy that puts one picture on there and it's blurry or it's sideways it looks like you tripped and fell over as you were snapping it take nice pictures vehicle type motorcycle year 1987 yamaha fj 1200 motorcycle type standard cruiser sport here we're going to put touring engine size of 1200 cc's of course it's manual transmission for this one the color is green 15 691 i'm going to price it at 2750 and we're going to see what happens bike was sitting for a number of years i cleaned out the gas tank and carburetors replaced the fuel line and filter clean kn pod filters changed engine oil and filter new front rear tires has a tall windshield and large lower fairing smaller fairing and a box of extra parts along with sail good condition for its age full kerker exhaust system runs and rides well publish now all that's left to do is answer a bunch of weird funny messages from people and hopefully we sell it and take our money to the bank in a wheelbarrow that's right my wheelbarrow is empty that's because i really like this bike and i'm keeping it i hope you got a good insight into the world of flipping and learn something don't forget to check out one of these two videos right here i know you're going to love them see ya