At the encouragement of another ebayer, I had a look around for CJ Legend on ebay and elsewhere online. Nowhere to be found! I guess I may have been lucky in my dealings with them. My guide for buying a CJ still stands however... but I have modified it accordingly. One must always be wary of making big purchases online, and especially internationally. I was lucky in that I was able to deal with Fullpoint on a face to face basis... one of those "I know where you live" type situations that probably worked in my favor. So... if you are interested in owning a CJ... I can certainly give you my perpective after purchasing, owning, and driving one. When I first sat down with the vendor, I made it very clear what I wanted in my CJ. I chose a black 32 HP OHV M1S, with a rough cast engine, but with platinum pistons, deep sump, high volume oil pump, Mikuni Carb (clones likely) and drive gear upgrades. I laid out my first $ and the order was placed. For those ordering one of these from China (whoever the broker may be), it will very liekly take a long time to come. My understanding of that, is to save money, the brokers will want to ship several over at the same time. So you might have to wait for a few more orders to be finished and sent from the factory to the dock in Shanghai where they leave port. In my case, I think it took about 6 months before my bike arrived. At that time I was called by the broker and told the bike would be in within the next few days. If I wanted to, I could pick it up directly from the airport (the crate traveled by freight ship from Shanghai to Vancouver, then by plane to Toronto), or have it delivered directly to my home (for about $200-300 via a trucking company). Turns out, there is a very reasonable motorcycle haulage guy who I found on Craigslist who brought it home for me for $80 (from North York to Pickering). I highly recommend him so if you need a bike moved, he has a covered trailer and does this for a living. Before you can actually drive your new CJ...there are a few things you really need to do. These are by no means suggestions if you want your bike to actually keep running so listen up. Go through ALL your wiring. Seal all bare connectors with electrical tape (I also used liquid electrical tape near the electronics). Buy some rubber grommets from Canadian Tire and install them anywhere the wires pass through metal. Plain wiring may be seen passing through the wheel wells of the sidecar and the rear tire. Make sure these wires are adequately protected from the elements. I actually removed them and coated them with heatshrink to toughen them up. Again with the gratuitous grommet use. I also refastened all the wiring to the frame with new zip fasteners. I opened up all the lights and made sure all the connections were intact and soldered what I needed to. Tighten any screw/bolt you see and fix any wire that may look bare. Use loctite blue generously. Save yourself some trouble later. I didnt like the looks of the plug wires that came with the bike (cloth style - gave a vintage look but didnt exactly direct all the voltage to the plug) and I was having trouble with the right plug misfiring. Again, I went to Canadian Tire and bought a set of straight wires for a GM. I removed the rubber boots on the shorted of the two sets and voila...they plugged right into my spark generator. I also was advised to have a close look at my fuel system before I tried to run petrol through and it is a good thing I did. I took my tank off and there was still some sand or sediment from the painting process. So...I stripped and coated with POR15. Awesome stuff!. I also picked up some new fuel lines, added some fuel filters, and synched the carbs. I removed the stock petcock and added an extra gasket inside (made from Canadian Tire gasket material) as I hear there was trouble with some leaking in that area. I also replaced the old black rubber OEM fuel tank gasket and replaced it with a cork one I fabricated... apparently these old rubber ones warp and you get fuel sloshing out from the lid - so... an ounce of prevention right? Also, remove the crap that goes for lube in China. The stuff that came out of the rear drive was unidentifiable - cross between snot and liquid clay with little sparkly pieces in it. I flushed it, and replaced with a gear oil. Needless to say I replaced all the lubricants. Instead of purchasing those fancy oil drain plugs with magnets built right in... I bought a few dime sized super magnets from Canadian Tire and they stuck readily to the OUTSIDE of the drain plugs (NB - The next oil change showed debris stuck to the inside of the drain plug - it worked quite well). I had initially changed the brillo pad air filter that came with the bike and replaced it with a paper filter, but it turned out that this lead to a way too rich fuel mixture. After making a few inquiries, I discovered that the brillo filter, though it appears crude, is actually a pretty good system and once I switched back, performance improved significantly! With respect to titles, registration, insurance, etc,... Once again...its not clear cut but once you know what to do, you will find your headaches to be significantly reduced in number. When you get your bike, your broker should provide you with your customs and ministry of transportation papers indicating the bike is legal in Canada. He will also give you the registration papers from the prior chinese owner. Remember, this bike is coming into Canada as a rebuilt but stock bike and it will have had a previous owner. The previous ownership will be entirely in chinese and will require official translation before the Ministry office will even look at it...so dont bother standing in line unless you have this. I can provide you with a translation company should you need this information. In addition, your broker should provide you with an invoice which you will need at the MOT office as well in order to pay taxes on the cost of the bike. Depending on the MOT office you go to, this will be sufficient. Otherwise, they may require a specific customs form. Some MOT offices will even request an appraisal. I had one done for fun...but be prepared to dish out and with an appraisal, you will always hope for a nice high appraisal value in the event you want to sell, but then again, the higher the appraisal is, the more tax you will pay...and to be honest, most appraisers have no idea how to appraise this type of bike... so whatever you get might be pretty subjective. Now there is insurance. There are a few places who will insure this bike...if you are lucky enough to find someone on the other end of the line who know what you are talking about the first time you try to pronounce the name of the bike. Please take note... before even considering this kind of bike... remember that is is NOT a URAL, BMW, or Dnepr. All these bikes have their own characters including an abundance of pro's and numerous con's. None of these bikes (including Urals) have any sort of dealership or organization that you can turn to in your area for maintenance. Urals have a few dealerships, but in store stock is limited to non-existent so if you want one... you will end up ordering it anyway. And it is very unlikely that any dealership will want to open up a bike like this if they didnt sell it to you in the first place. Liability reasons I'm sure. In any case, do your research before making these purchases, and remember that you will have to do YOUR OWN work on this bike. This is not to say that you are going to have to get greasy for an hour every time you want to go for a Sunday drive. That has not been my expereience. However periodic maintenance and any overhauls will likely be up to you or one of your mechanically inclined friends who likes your brand of beer. Oh, and when you get your bike, DO NOT expect showroom quality. You WILL see tool marks on the castings, painting imperfections, scuff marks from the shipping crate, unfinished welds and an assortment of other little idiosyncrasies that will have you scratching your head and wondering why in blue blazes the chinese 'did it that way?!' So do yourself a favor and do not expect Harley Davidson showroom quality because you will be sorely disappointed and the fun of having one of these bikes will be lost. They joy is having something that nobody else has! These are cool looking bikes and Ihave always had a blast on mine. Lots of attention! But they need some special care especailly when you first get them. As a final note, when you do come across ads for a CJ750 on ebay or elsewhere and the ad seems to use the words BMW and Chang Jiang Interchangeably, it is important to remember that CJ's simply have a BMW history and are not BMW's. I wrote this guide/ review to help anyone thinking about buying a CJ as I had no such help when I was going through all of this. I was more than nervous at the time I placed the order. Dean
Guide created: 05/20/07 (updated 10/20/09)


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