Not a scooter but...

My landlord asked me to service his Pan European and as I have some free time he dropped it round early this morning. It's a 1992 bike with 129,000 miles on the clock. While it was up on the lift I gave it a good look over and I've got to say for such an old bike, it's in great shape.

I changed the engine oil, oil filter, air filter and final drive oil. Tomorrow I'm going to pop in a new timing belt, check the valve clearances and do a compression test more out of interest than anything else. It is sewing machine smooth so I don't expect any issues. If my Silverwing lasts as well as this bike, I'm well happy.

That's a coincidence, I've just put a video up featuring work I did on my ST1100. Some of the pics may be of interest to you...

Very entertaining and professional looking!

Crustycrutch wrote:

It's a 1992 bike with 129,000 miles on the clock. While it was up on the lift I gave it a good look over and I've got to say for such an old bike, it's in great shape. . . .

If my Silverwing lasts as well as this bike, I'm well happy.

Being a Pan (aka ST) owner (as well as Silverwing), I have taken an interest in such things. I'd been aware of someone rebuilding their motor at 345,000 miles, which i thought was impressive, but I recently noticed a post on the ST forum about an owner having to do some work on his motor at 420,000 miles. He said until some issue at 380,000 miles he had never done anything to the motor apart from routine maintenace, and even at 420,000 miles had still not had the head of the motor.

Your Silverwing has a way to go yet!

The funny thing is, I wasn't bothered by high mileage Silverwings when I was looking to buy one. However, I ended up with a nice 7,000 miler!

I feel I'm getting used to the Silverwing so I think my ST1100 will be up for sale soon. That's when people will try and knock me down on the price, "Well - it is a rather high mileage, old chap".

The ST1100 breaker in Chorley told me he regularly scraps stockpiles of perfectly good ST1100 engines because nobody buys them off him - they just don't break down! He sells good ones for around £200... so if mine had needed one, I'd have put one in!

When I first got my wing and was looking for parts I picked up a spare engine for $250. Figured it'd come in handy since I planned on keeping the scoot forever. Now close to 50k and never had a lick of problems out of the original engine other than a stator and a stripped drain plug which both have been robbed off of the engine in the closet.

Seadog wrote:

Crustycrutch wrote:

It's a 1992 bike with 129,000 miles on the clock. While it was up on the lift I gave it a good look over and I've got to say for such an old bike, it's in great shape. . . .

If my Silverwing lasts as well as this bike, I'm well happy.

Being a Pan (aka ST) owner (as well as Silverwing), I have taken an interest in such things.  I'd been aware of someone rebuilding their motor at 345,000 miles, which i thought was impressive, but I recently noticed a post on the ST forum about an owner having to do some work on his motor at 420,000 miles.  He said until some issue at 380,000 miles he had never done anything to the motor apart from routine maintenace, and even at 420,000 miles had still not had the head of the motor.

Your Silverwing has a way to go yet!

That is an impressive mileage for anything this side of a truck or ship...  

I have heard of Transalps and Varaderos cracking 125K with nowt but some good maintenance and probably a rectifier or so, and thought that was good... ;-)

Great video, I will show my mate as he has a Pan

I had a Pan ST1100 once, ex Police I think, it had traction control and CBS and ABS and went like a train. So easy to ride, it felt weightless, and pulling into a garage and putting (IIRC) about 6 gallons of fuel in it was a novelty. Didn't feel that weighless when pushing it around, but the balance was just there. It ran an 18" front wheel which was a novelty too. And the rear wheel was a bit of a job to do unless you knew the tricks.

The only reason I didn't stay with it was I kept grounding the fairing out, obviously I'm the kind of rider that makes bikes lean and I was slowly pushing my luck with it. But it was one of those effortless bikes, you just slouched behind the screen and let the miles go by.

Never ever had the engine apart, did have to change the exhaust though, that fell apart at 260,000 miles.
I often wonder if it's still out there. I'll see if I can find the old photo's out because I can't recall the reg number. Just spoke to my wife about it, I've had my black VFR Vtec since 2007, and I had a 2002 Vtec before that so it was some years ago.

The ST1100 is one of Honda's best bike ever made. If it wasn't for the weight I would have gotten one instead of my present Silverwing.

To be honest, I have no experience with electric scooters. But I would just take a petrol scooter.
It might be nice to drive such an electric, and quiet too. But they are still considerable distances that you cover every day. Such a battery will degrade over time. And if something goes wrong with it, higher repair costs may be incurred. If it were all this great, there would be many more electric scooters driving around.

Great video and bike!

I have had three pans one thing to be wary of on the early bikes is the swing arm rotting through