Anyone ever bought and had luck with a basket case bike?

[Ducatiwreck]

I found a monster 620 listed at a local motorcycle recycler for $800.  I'd imagine at the price, there are a myriad of potential issues. But I wonder if (presuming the frame is straight and the engine isn't complete trash) it would make for a fun project.

Has anyone had luck with a similar project or is the world better off letting that thing eventually  fall into the scrap heap?

[Duck-Stew]

I hit a '99 M750 for $1000 about ten years ago.  Salvage title and ran like ass while smoking out the neighbors.

Turns out all the rings on both pistons were lined up. An afternoon and $15 worth of gaskets sorted the motor...

I did ok on it $-wise...  I think I turned about $600 profit.

[Charlie98]

Well... you hit the highlights... 1) is the frame bent, and 2) is the motor trash?  You might be able to survive one or the other, but not both.

[GregP]

First off, there is no such thing as a cheap Ducati. You will pay for it one way or the other.

I bought a $1000 750 Paso and put about $3k in it over the next couple of years. Would have been better off spending $4k on a better maintained bike but I enjoyed the bike until I totaled it. Luckily, I got my money back by parting it out.

If you're going into it with an eye for tinkering and doing the work yourself, you're starting with the right attitude.

[Ducatiwreck]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess you'll see me posting again if I decide to bite the bullet on that bike.

GregP- the tinkering is definitely where my mind is at. I had read that the lower end monsters are not that much more expensive than a Japanese bike IF you can do your own maintenance. So presuming the bike in question isn't totally ruined, it would be a good way to learn maintenance without a mistake completely ruining a perfectly good bike.

[pitbull]

bought a crashed 2000 m900ie, with a clean title, a few years back for $1,500. Motor had cracked engine mounts, but was otherwise good. Frame was slightly bent, forks were good, rims were good. I was able to straighten the frame myself and getting the engine mounts welded was fairly cheap.
What costs money is used parts and even though you can find most stuff reasonably, there's lots of little things that add up. Even when you're done you will likely have to put new rubber on the rims, which isn't cheap.

In the end it cost me about $3,000 to get the bike road worthy, for a total of $4,500. I probably could have found a good running bike for the same amount or slightly more. I later traded the bike for a ST2, which worked out well. It was a great learning experience and I enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't do it again.

If you do buy it, post up your progress here.

[d3vi@nt]

Not having any idea what shape it's in, you're rolling the dice with $800.

Don't know where you're located, but I see Monsters in good to great shape regularly for under $4k, a 620 on CL right now for under $3k.  In that price range, you can still tinker without much worry.

Plus, if you fix up a salvage bike, you'll still get less out of it in resale due to the salvage title.

Just my two cents...

[Barney]

Not a ducati, but I bought one hell of a basket case in a 2012 Triumph Bonneville.  The thing cosmetically looked pretty good, and was priced at what I thought would be a reasonably good deal even though all the warning sings were there - it had its fair share to dings and bruises, but overall I thought it was solid, and I let my emotions get the better of me and bought it off the guy - couldn't have been further from the truth. got it home and started working on it - it had absolutely been down, and I believe what happened was that the previous owner dumped the bike and starved the motor - which he replaced with another motor that wasn't 100% compatible.  to top it off, the left hand cylinder had leaky intake so it wasn't combusting and eventually fouled the plug. once i got that cleaned up, and got it running, it runs well. 

I realized the digital gauges weren't reading anything - in 2012 Triumph used a CANBus ecu with a digital cluster that the bike will not run without - it also used a speed sensor of the transmission to run the speedo - my engine case doesn't have a speedo sensor mount, so I know it's pre-CANBus.  wound up having to find a new ECU since I couldn't feed the speedo a signal and I couldn't run the bike without the gauges attached.  on top of that, almost every other nut and bolt on the thing has been touched at some point - various stripped or rounded fasteners, etc. etc.  basically everything I touched on the bike wound up being a nightmare.  It's on the road now,  almost a year later, but i'm still not done with it and it's cost me significantly more in time, money, and literally blood  . 

It's a shit bike too compared to my Monster - the brakes suck, it doesn't like to turn or stop, and the suspension feels like it's made of wood. But it makes all the right noises, and it looks soo pretty, and I feel like Steve McQueen when I roll down the street on it, so for those reasons it's probably got a permanent spot in my garage.