!988 Venture Royale possibility: Opinions requested.

[luvmy40]

There is a facebook market place add for a 1988 Venture Royal not too far from me. About 2 hours drive. The pics are crappy but the guy said it is complete. He was in the process of tearing it down to fully repaint from the frame up and lost interest.

 

He's asking $765.00 OBO

 

My thoughts are to offer a low ball, sight unseen and pick it up to;

 

A) Repaint(if necessary) and reassemble as my "new" daily rider. Thereby making The Beast a candidate bike for bobbing or some other harebrained project.

 

Or

 

B) Transfer the sub frames, luggage mounts, luggage and fairings to The Beast and making the '88 the base for a Frankenstein's monster.

 

Any input?

Edited April 29, 2019 by luvmy40

[cimmer]

This is a tough one to answer as it depends on your mechanical abilities to reassemble the bike. I would go cheaper then the asking price on this project. It would depend on if he disassembled the engine or not. You might be able to sell the plastic off via ebay if it is in good shape and some of the other parts you wont need in your conversion or if you find that it is too much of a basket case part it all out and recoup your money hopefully.

 

Good luck

 

Rick F.

[luvmy40]

I am primarily interested in the plastics. The fairings, side panels and trunk on my '83 need a lot of help. I've done some repairs to make them secure(to a point), but making them look nice is beyond my skill set. I can paint but the sculpting and shaping never turns out for me.

 

The problem is, every time I spend time and money checking out a CL or Facebook add, they turn out to be a waste of said time and money. This one is close enough that it's not too big a deal if it falls through.

 

There is another FB add that has the main fairings, side bags, engine covers and one side of the lowers from a maroon Gen I, Mk I that look to be in very good condition at a very good price. The problem is it's a 4 hour drive and I still have to locate a trunk and the rest of the lowers that match or paint everything.

 

There are a couple members here that have a lot of what I need for sale. The problem is the freight cost is prohibitive for the larger fairing pieces.

 

One member, who I will be meeting soon has a very nice looking '93 for sale. I wouldn't be opposed to buying another Gen I, in fact I plan to at some point. I'm just not sure I'll have the extra scratch in the time frame to make it happen at this time.

[cowpuc]

I say GO FOR IT and build a Chop or a Franky bike of your design!! Having built numerous "one off's" thru the years I can honestly say that ground up builds are some of the most memorable times I ever had between man and machine!! DO IT Luv,, JUST DO IT!!!

[bongobobny]

Just so you know, the MK2 pieces will fit your MK1, but some are direct bolt-on and some require changing out the sub-fairing brackets. The trunk requires changing out the chrome mounting frame (direct bolt-on) and changing the antenna bracket but then you have a much bigger trunk but it is not removable unless you can find an '85 trunk frame and the mounting hardware for the trunk but then you need a second key...