Inside a small motorcycle shop: a stripped machine up on the bench with its tank off, yellow tool cabinets behind it, and a red and white standard bike parked on the concrete by the open roll up door.

Tell us the year. That is really the whole question.

Every dealer in the metro has a cutoff, and nobody prints it. Ours is on this page, by decade, along with what we charge and what we will not touch.

Find your bike

Sorted by how old it is, because that is what decides who will take it.

Dealerships are set up to service what they sell under warranty. Past about a decade the parts go on national backorder, the flat rate book stops covering the job, and the service writer starts telling people the bike is not worth fixing. Most of what rolls in here is a bike somebody was told that about.

Pre‑1970

Depends

British singles, two strokes, anything with points and a magneto

We can do the mechanical work and we enjoy it, but we will not go looking for parts for you. Come with the part in a box or with a source, and understand that a rebuild on one of these is measured in months and is never the cheap option.

Bench rate, quoted by the job not the hourfrom $95/hr
Deposit before the bike comes off the trailer$400

1970–1989

Yes, this is the shop

Air cooled Japanese fours, carburettors, contact or early electronic ignition

This is what the shop is named after and it is most of the work that comes through the door. A bike that sat in a barn for fifteen years is a known quantity here: it needs fuel, spark and brakes addressed in that order, and it needs somebody who has done it forty times rather than somebody reading a forum.

Barn find assessment, written, before you commit to anything$140
Full carburettor service, four cylinder, see below$520
Charging system diagnosis, stator, rectifier and harness$180
Fork seals and fluid, pair$260
Complete brake system rebuild, both ends$430

1990–2005

Yes

The last carburetted generation, and the first of the fuel injection

The awkward decade. Too new to be interesting to a restorer, too old for a dealer to want in the service lane, and usually the best value used bike anybody can buy. Parts are still available and most of these are worth fixing properly.

Valve clearance check and shim, four cylinder$480
Cam chain tensioner replaced$210
Coolant system flush, hoses and thermostat$190
Full service, fluids, filters, plugs, chain and adjustment$295

2006–2016

Yes

Fuel injected, out of warranty, and just past the dealer's interest

We read fault codes on everything in this range and we can flash and sync throttle bodies. What we do not have is factory diagnostic software for every marque, so if a bike needs a proprietary tool to complete a repair we will find that out on day one and tell you, rather than on day nine.

Fault code read and road test$85
Throttle body sync and idle set$140
Tyres, mounted and balanced, per wheel off the bike$45
Tyres, wheel removal and refit added$70

2017 on

Warranty work, no

Take it to the dealer while it is still covered

We will happily do tyres, brakes, chains, batteries and fluids on a new bike, and we are cheaper than the dealer at all five. But if it is still in warranty and something has genuinely failed, we will tell you to use the warranty, because paying us for it costs you the claim.

Anything the dealer would voidwe decline
Wear items and consumableswelcome

What a carburettor service means here, and what it means at most places.

Most shops mean spraying aerosol cleaner through the bowl drain and calling it done. That gets a bike running for two weeks. On a machine that has sat, the varnish is in the pilot circuit, which is a passage about the diameter of a hair, and no aerosol reaches it.

Rack off the bike, airbox and boots inspected while it is out
Completely disassembled, every jet and every emulsion tube out of every body
Two hours in the ultrasonic, then every passage cleared with wire and air
New float needles, seats, bowl gaskets and o-rings throughout
Float heights set with a gauge, not by eye
Bench synced, then vacuum synced on the running bike
Mixture set on a warm engine, and the bike is ridden before you get the call

Single cylinder$220

Twin$340

Triple$430

Four cylinder$520

Parts, typical rebuild kit set$60 to $180

A bank of four motorcycle carburettors on a workbench cloth with the float bowls removed and lined up beside them, and small brass jets laid out on a tray. — A rack out of a late seventies four, mid service. The bowls line up in the order they came off so nothing goes back on the wrong body.

The rest of the board

Labour is $95 an hour, and everything below is a flat rate that already includes it. Parts are separate and quoted before they are ordered. Nothing gets done that you have not agreed to on the phone.

Work	Flat rate
Diagnosis, first hour, applied to the repair if you go ahead	$85
Chain and sprocket set fitted and adjusted	$130
Battery fitted and charging system checked	$45
Brake pads, per end	$65
Master cylinder or caliper rebuilt	$155
Steering head bearings replaced	$310
Wheel bearings, per wheel	$95
Pickup and delivery inside 25 miles	$75
Pre-purchase inspection, written, before you buy somebody's bike	$120

The pre-purchase inspection is the best $120 on this list and almost nobody asks for it. Bring the bike, or send the seller to us, and you get a written page telling you what it needs before you own the problem.

Things we will turn down, said up front

Engine internals on a big twinBottom ends and transmissions go to a shop set up for them. We will give you two names in the metro.
Insurance estimates and collision workNo body shop, no paint booth, and we do not write estimates for adjusters.
Making a bike faster on a budgetA pipe and a jet kit on a tired engine makes a tired engine louder. We will do the engine first or not at all.
Storing a finished bike more than 30 daysAfter 30 days from the pickup call it is $12 a day, and the shop is small enough that this is not a policy we can bend.
Fitting a customer's own used part with no historyWe will fit your new part happily. A used one off an auction site has no warranty and we will not stand behind the labour.

Winter is the reason the spring wait is three weeks long.

Everybody in Clay County remembers their bike on the first sixty degree Saturday in March, which is the same day everybody else remembers theirs. Book in November and it is done and paid for before the salt is off the roads.

Put away properly

Fuel stabilised and the system run through, oil and filter changed so acid is not sitting in the engine all winter, tyres up, battery on a tender, and covered indoors on our floor.

$185, plus $40 a month indoors

Woken up in March

Fluids checked, brakes bled if the fluid is over two years old, chain cleaned and set, tyres checked for date code and flat spots, and ridden before you collect it.

$120, and $95 if it wintered here

An early eighties standard motorcycle parked on gravel in low evening sun outside a grey metal shop building with the roll up door open.

Two people, one lift, and a real wait.

The wait at the top of this page is updated every Monday and it is the actual number, not a sales number. Call, tell us the year and what it is doing, and you will get a straight answer about when we could start it.

(816) 555‑0129