Went Green. Well... kinda.

[Brad200X]

Picked this up for $150 last week. I believe its an '84, not 100% though. This thing is super ugly, but its solid, for the most part. I don't know if you can see it in the pictures, but I started wet sanding the rear fender, came out pretty good. (its better than pink) I also pick up an extra motor for 150 as well. ( my Dad spotted me) The silver engine doesn't shift right, and the motor that's in it, I think the crank bearings are wiped. (there's about a 16th of an inch of play in it) I should be able to make make one good motor out of two. Hopefully. Anyways I just wanted to ask a real quick question: somebody on here said that you could repair your intake boot with the stuff they use to coat tool handles. Is there a limit to this? There are some big cracks in mine, and I didn't want to suck that stuff into my carb. Thanks.

[Blown 331]

Sweet man. It is an 84, an 85 would have a front disc brake and no gold (wheels, swinger, fork legs). Looks good for the price. I have a red 85 as well. They are supposed to be rare but it seems like there sure are a lot of them!

[Brad200X]

I think that when they came out with them everybody bought green ones and promptly wrecked 'em because they didn't know what they were doing. I imagine Kawasaki built more green than red, but more red ones survive today. One things for sure, the plastic is definitely more rare. I'll probably just buy green Meier ones so I can ride it. I was messing around with the wet sanding because they are junk, and I never had a crap fender to experiment on.

[Blown 331]

You can find the red stuff sometimes. If you like red better then I'd keep it. One guy on here said he was still able to get the red from Maier but it took some work. My 85 has a Maier rear fender but it's really nice. No cracks or fading at all though it does have some scratches. The front fender was from a Honda! I just bought a red OE front in decent shape off ebay for $45.
One thing about the red ones is the tanks seem to hold up ALOT better. The green tanks look to turn brown and not just on the surface, like the whole wa through. Though DC plastics does make a tank cover and my brother has an old school Ceet tank cover on his green 85. My tank has some minor "whiting" to it but it should sand right out with out much problems. I'm pretty happy with the plastic on mine all the way around, no cracks at all.
Where is Will county, up north? I'm in St. Clair county IL which borders St. Louis MO.

[Brad200X]

Red meier eh? That is very interesting. Did they charge him an arm and a leg for it? Its not that I like one color more than the other, I just like to keep things close to stock. My tank has a little whiting to it too, but I' kinda afraid to sand it just yet. Its red on the inside, but the bike had the sun beating on it for who knows how many years. Will county is on the Indiana border. I'm about 40 minutes south of Chicago, in NE will county. I live in Peotone.

[scooterroo]

heat gun works great on the faded red plastics also, just make sure your constantly moving it back and forth and not getting the plastic so hot it starts to deform itself. as for the red ones being rare, yes they are a bit more rare then the green. if you do try the heat gun method, make sure you test it out on someplace that wont be so conspicuous, till you get used to it, like say the bottom of the tank or the tiny part that the front of the seat covers, where the rubber tank strap connects. i have had some good luck bringing a set of totally faded green fenders back to a nice color.

as for the plyer grip dip stuff, yeah it works pretty good on minor cracks and weathered intakes. i have done this before with a couple intakes i had, and it worked great.

a little time and elbow grease and yeah some cash, that could be a sweet t3. i like both colors, red and green, i got green on mine right now, but have a complete set of oem red plastics as well that are in awesome shape, in case i ever decide to change the color up.

enjoy the t3 man. once you get the motor up and running right, you defiantely wont be disappointed. welcome to the greener side of things !!!

[Brad200X]

Thanks scoot. I might try that heat gun, especially being that my rear fender is "race cut." XD (not worried about screwing it up) Kawasaki has been the make of choice for a long time in my family. One of my earlier memories as a kid is holding on to the crossbar of my Dads '82 KDX175 as we got about two feet of air, although it felt like six at the time! That bike is one of our few family heirlooms. It had 500 miles on it when he bought it in the mid-late 80's, and now it has 900 miles on it. Those things seem to be a lot rarer than the 1st gen Tecates.

[Tecate 50]

I have a perfect red tank if interested!

[Dirty]

Seems im not the only one with rubber parts problems. But i cant complain really for a machine beeing over 20 years old much of it is in really great shape. Mine has probably only been stored for most of the time while yours seem to have had tons of fun!

More can be read about mine in the link in my signature.

And looks like people are willing to part with stuff to get it pretty again ...but i guess it will cost u since forum members probably have a good sense of what things are worth.

/Johan

[Brad200X]

Seems im not the only one with rubber parts problems. But i cant complain really for a machine beeing over 20 years old much of it is in really great shape. Mine has probably only been stored for most of the time while yours seem to have had tons of fun!

More can be read about mine in the link in my signature.

And looks like people are willing to part with stuff to get it pretty again ...but i guess it will cost u since forum members probably have a good sense of what things are worth.

/Johan

Yeah Johan the elements can be brutal on rubber. All of the plastic and rubber that the sun was able to get to was pretty much destroyed, other than the tank, which really isn't in that bad of shape. The front fork and rear end seem to have come from another trike(s) because they're in better shape than the rest of the bike, and there's green on the headlight mount. The previous owner already replaced the airbox boot, and my intake boot is much worse than yours, I can look through one of the cracks in mine! BTW you have very good base to start out with though, real nice Tecate. Mine probably won't get that kind of makeover, but I'm still young so, we'll see...

[Brad200X]

I have a perfect red tank if interested!

How much are you looking to get? Do you have any other red T-3 plastic? I need a bunch of other stuff too so, tell me what else you're selling. Thanks.