The Thumper: 1982 Honda FT500 Ascot - Motorcycle Classics
Long after thumpers ruled the racetracks, Honda built a modern electric-start street single, the FT500 Ascot.
www.motorcycleclassics.com
1982 Honda 500 Ascot.
500cc single piston engine.
From what I'm reading it was a modification of a bike design for flat [dirt] track racing.
Owner didn't ride it for several years, ended up in a nursing home for a while then passed away. His son wants to sell it. I'm somewhat interested but I'm not going to fix it myself so I would have to have a trailer to a repair shop what do you guys think it's worth and what do you think a repair bill on it would be?
Pros: I started it the other day! All it took was adding some fresh gasoline to the old gasoline that was in the tank, check the motor oil level in the crank case, took the seat off, ran some jumper cables to the battery from my car, and the electric start worked fine --it fired right up.
Cons: Nothing electrical other than the green neutral light works-- no horn, no headlight, no turn signals, no brake lights come on.
Neither the front nor rear brakes work. There is brake fluid for the rear brake system. I did not try to take the cover off for the front brake fluid reservoir and the sight glass is too dingy to look through these days.
Since this 350 pound motorcycle with a big powerful engine does run, but has zero braking ability, I did *not* kick the shifter down into first gear and see if it goes! So, status of the transmission is unknown.
What do you folks think the value of this would be :
(1) as is,
and
(2) after it is repaired and in good working order,
and
-- does anybody have any ideas about what it would cost to have a professional motorcycle repair shop bring it up to par?