Hey, I'm Roy from New Zealand. I'm 23 and work as an engineer. I recently brought my first 500. It's a 1990 and has just had a new pipe and silencer put on it. Also had all the suspension rebuilt. I was silly and didn't think of checking the crankshaft for play when I went to pick up the bike (1300-1500km round trip away though, I probably wouldn't have left it there) which has a heap of slop on the ignition side. So started rebuilding it this week. Crank bearings feel fine (will be replacing) but have been fretting on the left side of crank (for a while by the looks of it). So crank needs replaced or hard chrome plated and reground.
My other toys are hotted up 2003 KTM SX200 which is pretty potent and just done full rebuild on that too (another unlucky buy lol). Before that I had a 1995 KDX200 that had been hotted up a lot from stock and went really well. Absolutely bullet proof bike! I brought it off a mate and did about 400-450 hard hours on it with only regular maintenance and top end rebuilds. It wasn't as pretty by the time I got rid of it lol but was the best value bike/car for money I've ever had. It's a real shame they don't still make these bikes.
Also have a 1979 Holden Kingswood ute I'm doing up. Runs a 307 chev which is about to have some world heads and a pretty decent cam fitted. RPM airgap manifold, V8 T5 box with proform short shifter and also building up a chev 12 bolt 4.56:1 LSD diff and 4-link suspension for it.
Here's some pics of my 500 and KTM (with KDX in background)...
