My trusty 83 RS that I bought in 2018 sat in a nice warm boat shed for 17 years.
I was only asked for advice by the owner as to selling it. However one look at the vintage plate on it made my mind up. Of course everyone reminded me of my favourite saying....'you will never find me on an RS'. I absolutely love it and have put 30,000 miles on it, its been to Kedada, lots of France and UK trips.
I ended up with a long list of things to do. The previous owner did have it running so that part was fine.
A rough list of what was needed.
Vacuum lines, vacuum caps, Z pipe etc- needed to get it to run and tick over.
So far so good then air filter, oils and coolant change. Now I have a good running bike.
Full brakes overhaul, master cylinders replaced, caliper seals etc braided pipes [PO did the pipes].
At this point I rode it home.
Tyres obviously. Riding it home on a cold wet evening on 20 year old tyres was interesting.
Rear shock, still working ok but they are not good, swapped out with YSS on my RT.
Full in tank replacement, all fuel lines, injectors but prices at the time were cheap at
www.tills.de. I did this lot about a year later.
A few cosmetics like heat shield [I got a load of brand new originals, early and late ones are interchangeable- difference is an extra bolt hole on later ones]. They dont last and the new one from 2019 is being replaced by another new one shortly.
Wheel paint [sorted by an eBay pair of freshly painted wheels with new bearings in, bought for £95 delivered].
Clutch cable broke 2,000 miles after I got it. It had been brand new but PO routed it wrongly.
Rear brake disc as the original slotted one had not been replaced on the recall.
Tank leaked eventually, got a same colour replacement.
K1100 stand assembly, those curved ones break and it had already been repaired.
I had a lot of the parts in my shed as brand new old stock purchases so the outlay was not high and not so far off Dai's estimate if I ignore the cosmetics.
A few other things died, like indicator relay, coils, a switchgear but I had these.
Given what I spent, I am happy as in present condition I will get it all back. All of it was diy.
For wear parts I tend to buy brand new rather than used. I am sure I could have saved some money buying used parts but I use all my bikes daily, 7 years not even using a car, so I like them to be reliable. Having parts on the shelf also saves a lot of grief when something does go wrong.
The day the clutch cable broke I was on a vintage outing. I rode it home without the clutch, parked it and sat on another bike beside it and rode out again. So my saying there is nothing like having a spare cluch cable, but it's even better when its already attached to a bike.