M1030M1

[glcaines]

I picked up an M1030M1 diesel motorcycle about 5 years ago. It is ex-USMC and was recently returned from Afghanistan. It still has the ISAF stickers on it, front and rear and all USMC markings. It also has three RFID units on it, one on each side and one on the handlebars designed to be read by satellite, according to what I read. The bike is in perfect condition, complete with all blackout lights, rifle rack and tool kits. I really enjoy riding it and get some strange looks. The only thing I've done to it is replace the battery twice and the front tire and tube. I was about 35 miles from home when I had a flat on the front. I pumped up the tire, but it would leak down in a couple of minutes. I ended up riding back home with the tire flat and averaging 15 mph. A funny thing happened once. I rode the bike into the parking lot of a motorcycle shop in Blairsville, Georgia. About 5 guys came running out of the shop area screaming at me to shut down the engine that I was destroying the engine. They had no clue that it was a diesel engine and diesel engines make sounds that, well, sound like a diesel. The engine is noisy.

The motorcycle started out life as an M1030B1 which is a militarized version of a Kawasaki KLR650, like Hambone has. The USMC returned over 100 of them to Hayes Diversified Technologies in California for conversion to a diesel. HDT developed the American diesel engine under contract to the USMC. Fred Hayes gets the credit for the whole program. The bike gets almost 100 mpg. It takes some getting used to when riding. The high compression engine has a lot of torque. In addition, when you let up on the throttle, the bike slows down very quickly. You have to remember to use the brakes to turn on the brake light as the engine will do a significant amount of braking.

M1030M1 Right.JPG

M1030M1 Left.JPG

M1030M1 Top.JPG

Right Side Engine.jpg

Top View.jpg

[Hambone]

That's a sweet bike, I would love to have a M1, they have value way above my price range, I've seen them sale for close to $15k if you can even find one, I've put about 600 miles on mine. I bought it about 5 miles from my house, I didn't even know the guy had it, he made a mistake and put it on Marketplace for $3k, I got lucky and saw it about an hour after it was posted. He bought it from a sheriff dept. about 150 miles away, my wife carried me to his house with a frown on her face while I was smiling all the way, I didn't even lose my smile when I handed him the cash, probably had bugs in my teeth when I got home.

[rickf]

What kind of acceleration does that diesel have? I am surprised to hear it has so much engine braking since diesels have no throttle and no vacuum. I may be paranoid but the RFID units would have to go away.

[glcaines]

It accelerates fairly good, but there is a slight delay once the throttle is twisted. The only thing I don't like is that it sits very tall and I'm only 5'8" and my feet won't set flat on the ground when I'm on it. I attached a photo of the larger RFID unit mounted on the handle bars.

RFID On Bars.jpg

RFID Tag.jpg

[rickf]

If that is a powered RFID unit and power is removed it might not be able to be tracked but most rfid's are not powered and work off of reflected energy from the transmitter. Not that they would be tracking it since there is probably a LOT of RFID equipped stuff that came back from the sandbox floating around out there but just the fact that they could....................

They know enough about me as it is, they don't need to know where I am riding my bike.
And I don't know if the clause is still in the paperwork but way back when there was a clause in the DRMO paperwork that stated in case of national emergency the government could come a take the vehicles back if deemed necessary for national defense.

[Horst]

Wow, that is a cool bike!
(I can't see any reference to an RFID unit, what's written on the 2 top decals on this handlebar container?)

[glcaines]

Attached is a photo of the Echo Point RFID tag for the RFID unit on the handle bars and a poor photo of the RFID units on the side. There is one of these on each side of the fuel tank.

RFID On Side.jpg

RFID.jpg