1991 Kaw Venture 1200

It has been a while and I was starting to go nuts looking for a project bike. Sold most of the winter projects so the itch was there.

Found this bike on FB Market and got it for a good deal. Again, no title, and this bike had been laid down hard so all the coverings are going to come off . I will have to do some custom fab for the front to make the bike look and drive well enough in the wind to not make noise and or fling all kinds of wiring around.

The bike came from factory looking like this:
Kawasaki ZG1200 XII 94 by Tim Brown, on Flickr
And now it starts off looking like this with all the platics bits that were broken off of it.
366265061_6299105843551951_7052082490529013894_n by Tim Brown, on Flickr
366078834_1618187082002607_9116722089386605166_n by
Tim Brown, on Flickr

Hoping that this bike can turn out to be a fun quick bike that will be a play bike. Got it cheap enough and after cleaning things up a bit, made sure no mice or other things were in the air box. The bike started instantly when I hit the start button. I was very shocked that it hardly turned over and it started and sounded great.

 

Got the exhaust tails cut off and the PVC welding done on the instrument cluster. All four bolt to plastic were broken during the "Crash in the grass" that this bike had.
ZG1200 dash by Tim Brown, on Flickr
So not very nice looking but holds much better then a glue type fix. If you ever try this make sure you do it in a very well ventilated area, with a fan pushing any smoke away from your face.

 

Now that you already have the instrument cluster fixed and back in place I can ask you. Have you tried the baking soda and super glue plastic repair trick? I have used it a couple of places and it worked as well as the Plastix repair stuff and in the same manner. I was plenty pleased with the results. And really cheap too. A box of dollar store baking soda and a couple of tubes of their super glue and you are good to go. I also read somewhere that ground to powder charcoal is even stronger than the baking soda repairs. Just be sure to use the liquid glue and not the gel stuff. The gel will just sit on the surface and not wick in the way it needs to. And tiny bits at a time.
But if what you are doing works.....continue!

 

Today took some of the wiring I will not be using on the bike. Took the audio off the bike so lots of wiring and speakers had to come off. I am also hoping to take the auto cancel on the turn signals and the cruse control off. Both of those items are sticking out away from the side of the bike too far. If it was a full dresser like it should be not issues, but will be a naked by the time I am done and don't need that stuff.

On the XII forum already have some folks that wants parts I am removing. That makes me very happy that this bike can contribute to the contained riding of another fulling functional bike.

Cleaned the heck out of the top of the engine once I pulled the batter box out. What did I find? The reason whey the bike started but sounded like it was not doing well, cylinder 3 and 4 plug wires were off. Put them back on and gave it another crank....wow, supper shocked that it is idling at 1k and will blip and spin up just great. I got lucky with this one. Sometime you get luck and sometime you just have a parts bike.

 

Flushed all the DOT4 out of the bike and put some new stuff in. Fluids all looked good and brakes are working as they should. Amazon is slow in my area this week, so my battery has been pushed to Monday. I was hoping to do a shakedown of the bike, but I guess not. That just means I will have to start to figure out the turn signals and rear tail lights and stuff instead.

Cleaned the bike a little more, almost looks like one side of the bike could have been in mud at one time. Only the left side was muddy and or has grass in it. The seller did say it was downed in the grass so that could have done it.

BIke by Tim Brown, on Flickr

BIke 1 by Tim Brown, on Flickr

Even the back of the bike had a little damage, top box and these bags got hit too.
366750687_849248143459952_6455518730770056753_n by Tim Brown, on Flickr

 

Did some electrical work on the bike. Taking the large top box off and then putting a black plastic box in its place. The wiring is really strange back there. Closed circutes for the light, running lights and turn signals. They don't share a common ground! This was driving me nuts, trying to hook up my rear turn signals and not being able to use a common ground like most other bikes.

Have to order a after market tail light, turn and plate holder, or just get some LED lights to put on the new top box. Interesting but fun. Going to see if I can bent some plastic to make covers for the side today.

 

Installed the new rear tail light, brake and turn signals. So far so good. Had to do some interesting wiring for the grounds to work back there as the frame ground does not work. What I mean is all the lights on the back of this bike are in plastic boxes in OEM configuration.

Working on making some side covers for the front part of the bike. Going slow but it will be worth it to get a good used bike back on the road. Still have to do the front turn signals, but did add some of the Amazon resistors to the turn signal ckt so they flash at a better speed. This bike has room for days behind the headlight area to mount items, that is why I placed the resister up front.

 

All the lights and turn signals have been mounted. For now, all the mad max side coverings came off. I also just welted two large washers to the sides of head light mounting frame for the led turn signals. Now the bike is ready for the road once I get the bonded title paper work in the mail.

Still need to find a way to get the air shocks both front and back working right. For now the hoses are open to the air and I need to find some proper air valves to clamp on the hoses to firm up the ride.

Interesting find on this bike. Had no idea that this bike had a two stage center stand. I found out that mine had one of the foot levers broken off as I was having a hell of a time trying to get it on center stand. Once I made and welded a new good lever on stage one of the center stand, works really well. So well, makes you wonder why other bikes don't have this same two stage center stand.