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MV Agusta barn find,

Rug Doc said:
Wow a lovely project. Amazing how a ‘barn find’ has a just expired mot.. :D
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Indeed. Dealers love "barn finds" because it suggests that the machine has been in a dry barn in the French countryside for 50 years ever since its elderly owner died and all it needs is fresh fuel and tyres. It's so much more appealing than "my mate dragged this out of a lockup in Bloxwich, the owner has been meaning to fix it for 2 years but he can't be bothered."
This particular one appears to be very much the latter. The MoT expired 18 months ago, it's had some use at 20k miles. It's clearly been dry stored, there's no evidence of any crash damage, it will need a service, MoT and probably tyres. Hardly a project. That said this kind of bike is very expensive to service, and after 20 years a lot of brake and suspension parts will be tired. Nobody buys a bike like this to tootle about at 50 mph so the notion of accepting some wear and slop is out of the question.
My guess? It will fetch a pretty substantial sum, assuming that it runs and drives and is undamaged, and it will need a fair bit spending to make it drive as it should rather than like a 20 year old bike with 22k miles of wear on board.
 
I had a great barn find of a 1954 Velocette MSS about 15 years ago. It was actually in a tumble down wooden shed. A 1971 tax disc was still in place.
 
Back in 1983, after both of us dropped out of mechanical engineering degrees, my pal (who had lived in Italy) hatched a plan to bring MV Agusta 750 "America"s to the UK. The one with the lovely sand-cast engine.
He'd noticed MV 750's were selling stupidly cheap over there. He'd also noticed that the Italian's were going daft for Land Rovers. So the plan was to buy a Land Rover in the UK, drive it to Italy, sell it and use the cash to buy one or two MV Agusta 750's to bring back.
Sadly neither of us had the capital to buy a Land Rover or the nouse to work out the import-export stuff. It remained a pub-dream. Pity. It could have worked.


1974 MV Agusta 750 S.
Remi Dargegen ©2017 Courtesy of RM Sotheby's
 
wulbert said:
So the plan was to buy a Land Rover in the UK, drive it to Italy, sell it and use the cash to buy one or two MV Agusta 750's to bring back.
Sadly neither of us had the capital to buy a Land Rover or the nouse to work out the import-export stuff. It remained a pub-dream. Pity. It could have worked.
1974 MV Agusta 750 S.
Remi Dargegen ©2017 Courtesy of RM Sotheby's
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Italians are very reluctant to sell bikes to foreigners, as they are still liable for any fines, etc, until the bike is registered to a new owner. And they don't trust, or can't understand, the intricacies of international re-registration.
And if buying a used bike from a dealer, they are astonished if you want to fire it up and check everything works! Or they were a few years ago.
 
My mate just sold a gen 1 (which I think this is, not 2) for 8 grand after spending loads of time sprucing it up.
 
richardg said:
My mate just sold a gen 1 (which I think this is, not 2) for 8 grand after spending loads of time sprucing it up.
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Sounds about right. One of the TV progs did similar with a Ducati, bought one cheap because it had been standing idle and neglected and needed a proper service, and even with Allen Millyard making special tools to set up the can timing they spent some thousands on parts and several days of labour to make it right. At the end they concluded that it was just about worthwhile if you did it all yourself and didn't charge for your time.
 
stevec67 said:
Sounds about right. One of the TV progs did similar with a Ducati, bought one cheap because it had been standing idle and neglected and needed a proper service, and even with Allen Millyard making special tools to set up the can timing they spent some thousands on parts and several days of labour to make it right. At the end they concluded that it was just about worthwhile if you did it all yourself and didn't charge for your time.
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The problem with classic superbikes is they are too uncomfy for the only people that like them, old people!
 
stevec67 said:
Were they really still fitting cable operated drum brake s to high performance motorcycles in 1978? OK, TLS, but even so. My bicycle has better brakes!
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I wondered about the brakes too. Theoretically, the twin leading shoes on both sides would have a massive surface area of friction material. Ventilated too, against the major down-side of drum brakes, brake fade when hot. Add in the self-actuating effect of TLS and large diameter drum. Maybe they were OK? Up to a point.
The bike is fairly stripped down and would be ridden by a skinny, 1970's, 9-stone Italian bloke who only ate fags and coffee. Italian performance bikes from that era tended to deliver the handling and stopping goods better than Japanese rivals with their wooden hydraulic callipers (massive generalisation).

I think this Japanese "superbike" from Honda, the NR, rivals some of the tasty Italian stuff for looks. Oval pistons and four, eight-valve cylinders!


 
stevec67 said:
Were they really still fitting cable operated drum brake s to high performance motorcycles in 1978? OK, TLS, but even so. My bicycle has better brakes!
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I think some of the twin leading shoe drums in the late 60s and early 70s were better than Japanese stainless single front discs (especially in the wet), going by the one on the front of my 1968 Triumph 250, the same one as used on 650's
 
Jamie said:
I think some of the twin leading shoe drums in the late 60s and early 70s were better than Japanese stainless single front discs (especially in the wet), going by the one on the front of my 1968 Triumph 250, the same one as used on 650's
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You're probably right in all areas other than fade. As bikes are so light you won't get fade on the road unless you are driving with a deathwish. Discs are easier to service, but drums stay clean and working. Especially with cables, no hydraulics to gum up.
 
If I was going to immerse myself in Italian bike hell, I think I’d go for Seventies/Eighties Bimota stuff first.
 
stevec67 said:
You're probably right in all areas other than fade. As bikes are so light you won't get fade on the road unless you are driving with a deathwish. Discs are easier to service, but drums stay clean and working. Especially with cables, no hydraulics to gum up.
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Isn't that what Italians do? And yeah, I have, stupidly enough, driven a moped in Rome.
 
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