[bityard]

I restore and wrench on vintage motorcycles. I also balked at first when I read this, but I think it comes down to bad storytelling rather than a shady mechanic.

A motorcycle that has been sitting for 2 years does NOT need a complete overhaul, as you point out. But there is much-better-than-even chance that the 1983 motorcycle hadn't had ANY major maintenance done to it up to the point it stopped being ridden. It was probably parked in the first place because it stopped running due to lack of maintenance. And everything the mechanic listed that needed to be done likely hadn't been done in decades.