Hey, guys. I'm new here, but I thought I'd throw this out and see what comes back.
I recently came into possession of a 99 Royal Star Venture, essentially for free. The guy who disposed of it in my driveway purchased it for a fairly ridiculous sum 5+ years ago and immediately wrecked it. He went some way to making it ridable again, but he was scared to ride it anyway so there it sat in his carport.
The story is that it ran and rode OK when he parked it, but needed a new stator. I'm skeptical that he would actually be able to diagnose a stator issue, but that's the word. He provided me with a new stator he bought when he still intended to ride it years ago.
I haven't had a bike to tinker with in a while, and never one this bad off, but it seems like an interesting project that I am mostly equipped to handle, so here we are.
Current condition: Very dirty. Everything covered in red clay that don't like to come off. Very little rust. Clutch pulls in with almost no resistance, pretty sure somethings wrong with it. Brakes are dragging, mushy and not working very well. Throttle doesn't turn at all. The body work is FUBAR. I don't think there's a plastic piece on it that's not cracked, broken, screws missing, scratched up, etc. No major damage on the tank, though. Crash bars obviously dragged a LONG way on the left side. Some of the turn signal covers are broken. Front light bar is rusting and I suspect someone welded it back together. Seats are good except some stitching pulling out on the driver back rest.
Oh, and whoever he bought it from did some very weird stuff with wiring. Looks like they tried to put underglow LEDs all over and add speakers in weird places, at least, and did it very badly. They cut a big hole in the left box to mount a speaker, and then apparently took the speaker out when they got rid of it. Straight tweaker job, here. I found spare fuses stashed all over it, and mystery toggle switches mounted in stupid places. I'm pretty sure there's some doorbell wire strung through there. 😆 Not to mention the wiring harness sleeves on the handle bars are completely sun rotted.
Lots of misc stuff missing. Antennas, various bolts, the rubber elbow rests for the back seat, one of the mirrors.
So obviously I don't intend to try to restore this to factory. I haven't decided 100% what to do with it, but so far here's what I'm thinking:
1. Strip it down and clean it
2. Install new stator, because why not..
3. Change all fluids and flush out the gas tank
4. Rebuild carbs
5. Strip off any sketchy aftermarket junk and loop check as much of the wiring as possible, repair as needed
6. See what hoses need to be replaced. New thermostat maybe?
7. Troubleshoot clutch, throttle and brakes - hopefully a good cleaning and adjustment is all it needs..
8. Reassemble, put in a new battery and see how she runs. Sync the carbs.
If I get that far and it runs well, there's a fork in the road. Originally I thought I would toss most of the plastics and do some weird mad max bare-bones build, but I think I can salvage most of it. So right now, the plan is:
9. Fiberglass and patch bodywork as needed, assuming I can figure out how to fix broken clips and brackets
10. Paint whatever color my wife decrees will look good that day. Right now she says gunmetal gray.
11. Figure out what to replace the lights/turn signals with.
12. Figure out what to replace the passenger arm rests with
13. Figure out how to fix the driver backrest
14. Put new tires on it, reassemble everything
15. ...?
16. Profit
I am equipped to do most of this myself, but I am not a professional at any of it. Some feedback here would be very helpful as I wrap my head around this project. Obviously, this could very easily turn into a money pit and cost more than the bike is worth. For the most part I'll be fixing what I can fix myself and canning what I can't.
I'd love to hear from you guys about any pitfalls you see coming in this project, any common issues to look out for on these bikes, the best places to get parts, etc. I'd especially love to hear any ideas on what to do with the build generally, what mods work well and look good or even any crazy and weird ideas that might be fun to try. I don't have much invested here so I can afford to get weird with it.
I'm not sure how active this board is, but if this gets any traction I'll even update this along the way.
Thanks
