Nashville Motorcycle Repair

Vintage Motorcycles and Modern Classics

If you have a vintage motorcycle or a modern classic from Japan or Europe, and you need someone to repair it, handle some basic maintenance, or just check it over, that’s what we’re here for. We see the good in old bikes and take care to get them running like they should.

We gladly repair and service all Ural motorcycles and most* Japanese and European motorcycles from model year 1999 or earlier. We also sell new Urals and occasional used motorcycles that we like or just received on a trade-in.

We make an exception for a few bikes newer than 1999 that we consider "modern classics." For us, that means an upright seating position, air cooling (or a well-hidden radiator), and minimal fairings. That includes the Triumph Bonneville/Scrambler/America, all Urals, the Kawasaki W650/W800 and Honda CB1100, plus most Moto Guzzis and opposed-twin BMWs (the "R" bikes).

* We are, apologetically, unwilling to work on the huge, fully-faired touring bikes like the Honda Gold Wing and their competitors. We never had one come in that didn't need 300% more work than the owner expected, and we've have a couple of them dumped on us after repairs were complete, as the owners changed their minds after approving a bunch of work.

Professional Service

We started out in 2011 in a small, dusty downtown garage that was intended for side projects but quickly became the base for a new full-time business. Since then, we've deepened our expertise on the bikes that weren't a good fit for big, multi-line motorcycle dealers -- a lot of 1970's Japanese bikes especially, but also BMW airheads, "metric" cruisers too old for the dealers to bother with, carbureted Triumphs, etc.

Since day one in that little garage, what we've always done our best to maintain is a professional workplace and attitude. We collect and pay sales taxes, we pay for proper disposal of used tires and oil, we keep the floors reasonably clean and uncluttered, and we keep our customers' parts and projects organized. (Need your old invoice from 2011? We've got it. Want to get your old parts back as souvenirs or learning aids? Ask when your bike is finished, because we don't keep scrap parts around for long.)

We've also expanded what we're able to do, over the years. While we'll probably never be machinists, we do have the hand tools to perform a complete valve job to keep an old cylinder head in service for another decade or three. And while we're not performance tuners who make bikes go faster than stock, we do have a dynamometer for troubleshooting and tuning carburetors to run like they were meant to, and to do it without putting our lives at risk by tuning carbs solely out on the street. (Shatter your right leg just one time and you start looking for safer ways to work...)

Not cheap. not fast.

Hourly rate $125

Most labor, plus parts and sales tax. More detail.

E-mail is best

We know phones are convenient for longer conversations. Unfortunately a ringing telephone is an interruption to our work on another customer's bike, and interruptions invite mistakes. So we communicate primarily by email, from start to finish. This also makes it easier to make sure we've covered all your requests, since they're written down from the beginning.

Motorcycle Repairs Take Longer

Because motorcycles have never really won the American general public's affection like the automobile, the infrastructure for repairing motorcycles is a tiny fraction of what you're used to for your cars and trucks. This means there are no parts in stock in a local warehouse, and no fleet of white Nissans to deliver them to our doorstep in 30 minutes for free. New parts come from distribution centers around the continent, taking 2-7 days to arrive, or they come from salvage dealers via eBay, or sometimes from across the oceans. Please be patient.

The Basic Process

Repairs: We mostly bring in repair work from our waiting list. When your spot comes up, we'll email or text that we're ready for you to bring us your bike. Once it's here, our goal is to diagnose your bike's problems and write a detailed estimate within two weeks. We give you a week to approve the estimate, approve it with changes, or come and get the bike. We'll invoice you for a deposit of 50% if the total project estimate exceeds $800, and we'll order parts and get started on the work after you pay the deposit.

Maintenance: We do still schedule maintenance work normally, and the typical wait to get in is 2-6 weeks depending on the season. Maintenance work is limited to oil/fluid changes, tire replacement, brake pad/shoe replacement, chain and sprocket replacement, spark plugs replacement and points/timing adjustments, some valve adjustments, and leaking fork seals. (If you need tires, we'd appreciate you buying the tires through us, but we won't make a big stink about it if you don't.) Turn around time for oil and tires is usually same-day; everything else is normally 1-2 days. If we discover that you bike needs repairs in addition to the maintenance, we might make a separate appointment for that unless it's something "easy."

Follow up work: If we did major service to your bike in the past 12 months and something new goes wrong, we'll skip you past the waiting list.

* Wait, More Exceptions?

Because we're still suckers for the weird stuff, and Aermacchi-built Harley-branded bikes qualify -- they're from Italy after all. Chang Jiang's sort-of copies of the Ural/BMW bikes also qualify, only because we're gluttons for punishment. Don't be afraid to ask if whatever you've got is something we'll work on. We might say no, but we'll try to connect you to someone willing and able to do it.

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