Opinions on Bandit 1200
 

Just had a hell of a deal fall into my lap. One of neighbors has a 95-96 Bandit 1200 that he's looking to get rid of for $500. Bike has been sitting for 2 yrs (he bought a shadow and is an older gent, not too big on sport touring anymore). I took a quick look at it, and other than two years worth of dust and spiderwebs, looks in good shape.
I'm not looking for all of the gremlins associated with the bike (like the hawk cct's, etc.) just want someone with intimate knowledge of the Bandit to chime in and steer me in the right direction. Mainly, is this something I should buy, clean up, tune up and sell or would it make a good stablemate?

TIA guys.

buy

Jump all over it you can't go wrong.

Obviously it's such a steal that pending wife's permission I will buy it. I can be persuasive when needed so I've already started clearing space in the garage for it. That being said, is it a worthy stablemate or just something I should try and make a buck off of?
Also forgot to mention: clear title, odometer showing just shy of 30k original miles.

Agree if nothing else put a little work into it and sell it later, if it doesnt suit ya

deal alert! A friend of mine had one, he loved it.

careful, you might really like it! i ride with 1 all the time, fast, smooth and good fuel mileage, only thing i can pick on is it buzzes and my buddies had a heck of a time getting rid of a stumble @ 3k. pipe and jet kit seems to have solved it though.

Buy it. Clean carbs and sync, change oil and filter, get new fork seals and oil and flush the gas tank. Enjoy your new riding position and post photos of your smile. :)

no brainer!

Torque monster. But. . .

Some units had oil consumption issues

For five bills and time the bike you describe would be fun to turn around after a few play days. I recall the issue as being the oil ports in the piston ring groove being too large. Corrected on later yr models and not all the original bikes had the problem.

^^ Yes! It was the 00-02 models I think. I don't remember exactly but I know it was the first two years of the second gen. What year is the bike?

I used to have a '97 Bandit 600 and I absolutely loved it, BUT I never could get the carbs to run right and the clutch slipped from adding just a K&N and a slip on. I could lay that thing on it's ear and it was super fun to ride around town because of the high bars and the big squishy seat.

I dunno about Oregon, but even here in Texas, where things seem to be better economically than the rest of the country, it's still hard to sell a bike. You'd have to price it retarded low to flip it in a short amount of time.


I still miss this bike..
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Well, I have the wife's approval now. Going to talk to the guy tomorrow and get a closer look at it. Plans are to get it tuned up and running, ditch the ugly front fairing and keep it for next summer. I've already invited my younger brother up from PHX for a couple day ride on the Hawk and the Bandit next summer. He has an 01 SV650 and just got his first time home buyers tax credit and is looking for a new bike but not ready to go with a full liter bike. We'll see if I can change his mind...
I browsed through a Bandit Forum tonight and didn't see anything to dissuade me from buying it, and also found out that modding madness isn't something that afflicts only Superhawk owners.
Once I have it in my grubby little hands, I'll get some pics posted.

I've only heard good things about the Bandit from those who have ridden them. Hard to go wrong for $500.

Bought it!!
 

This has to be the single greatest purchase in my life. Not only was the price super low, the guy threw in a set of fieldsheer soft bags for it AND his daughter offered to watch my 5 month old twin daughters!
Got a few pics of it before starting to tear it apart but my laptop is being stupid...hopefully tomorrow.

You won't regret it at all. If it's truly a 95 or 96 then it's Canadian or European, as I don't think they had them in the US prior to '97. I have about 50k on mine, and yes, they are exceptionally mod-able. Mine most recently had a turbo system putting out over 200 rwhp. It's been on the back burner for a few years since I lost my job and am now in nursing school, but we have most of a new turbo system built with a set of Yamaha R1 throttle bodies and 1216cc low comp forged pistons. But even bone stock, it was always a snappy ride. Enjoy! Bandits have that old school UJM feel with the balls of a hot rod; those air/oil cooled gixxer motors are bombproof. A little fork work, or a front end swap and a decent rear shock, and it'll surprise quite a few more "pure sportbikes"...kinda sounds like the the Superhawk's M.O. right? ;)
-R

Wyld, it is in fact a 98. Previous owner only put 1400 miles on it in the 4 yrs he owned it. Problems so far... It was parked with 1/2 tank of gas, smells like alcohol now. Right fork is leaking; no oil appearing in sight glass:eek:. Good news...brand new batt, 2 hrs on trickle charger had it up to full charge, all electronics work. Cosmetically it has wear and tear indicative of it's age. Chain and sprockets were replaced at 20k miles, but that was 9 yrs ago...chain is rusted, so I'll clean it up and decide if it's worth salvaging or not.
Other than a total fluid change, new fork seals, brake pads, plugs, carb clean/sync other plans include: Stage 3 jet kit, K&N pod filters, new exhaust, new tires of course. Suspension will remain unmolested. I'm not looking to build the ultimate sport standard, because if the time comes to sell it I won't see a good return on that investment.
I would like to respray the bodywork but the frame is paintmatched and I don't want it to be that involved of a process, so if I can think of good color combo to compliment a maroon frame...or get some ideas from the wonderful forum members.
So without further ado...here she is.
First 2 pics are after I pushed it home and all the debris it's collected despite being covered. Last 2 are after a quick hose down and taking off the ugly front fairing. Let me know what y'all think.

That will come out good.. .nice score. Also, fairing-ectomy was the best thing you could have done to that bike. Yikes that was hideous.

It has to be the ugliest fairing suzuki has ever used! Hopefully there is someone out there that doesn't think so, so that I can sell it complete and use that $ to fund some of the repairs. I'm also amazed at the size of the exhaust! I thought stock exhaust on the hawk was huge...this monstrosity is about the size of both of the stock hawk cans combined. I've seen some cool underslung exhausts on the net... Oddly the most exciting feature to me thus far is the center stand! Now I just need to get it up on it without dropping the bike. She's a heavy beast.

Yeah, you'll get used to getting it up on the center stand. I use the rear footpeg bracket as my handle along with the left handlebar. Get it centered on the stand so both feet are touching down, shift all weight onto the centerstand lever with your foot and stand upright while pulling slightly, and up she comes. Good find. I'm glad to see you reclaiming it from the spiders. Agreed that the fairing isn't the nicest ever produced, but I never minded it that much. Also nice for breaking the wind for you when you hit 15lbs of boost in 5th and power through 160mph...;)
As far as the fork seals, it might not be bad to check the oil in the forks anyway, given the age, but I've had luck on more than one occasion with taking one of my smallest feeler guages and sneaking it between the seal and the tube and working it all the way around while spraying it with brake clean. Cured my leaking SH seal about 6k miles ago. As far as suspension, lots of cheap shocks will bolt right up to the Bandit, and just about anything is better than the stock one. I remember mine failing 300 miles from home, when it started getting pogo-ey going through a fast sweeper and losing traction. Upon pulling over, I saw the seal had failed and coated the rear tire in suspension oil. I replaced with a used Fox twin clicker out of a gixxer 750. I think it cost me $75 at a wrecker. Just my luck, the spring even seemed right, maybe due to different leverage ratio on the linkage. The bandit forum has tons of threads on that. I used to be pretty active there a few years back, but haven't been on much lately. Front forks can be improved immensely with progressive springs and cartridge emulators. All of which is cheap and easy to do, and pays dividends in how it rides. You'll need to pull the tank and drain and clean it as best as possible. You'll obviously need to go through the carbs very thoroughly as well. You may as well do this at the same time you install your jetting/ditch the airbox. Your jetting plan is fine, but I would steer you towards Holeshot performance. Dale Walker is the THE MAN when it comes to naturally aspirated Bandit performance. I ran his jet kit, (stage 2 I believe, but it's been years) with pods (2 filters, covers pairs of carbs) and his slip on exhaust. I forget the numbers, but it really uncorked the bandit and has been the best bang for the buck in making it run well. They are cold blooded lean running beasts until tuned properly. The bike will never be worth much, but there is a reason why it is coveted in Europe and the UK in particular as one of the best streetfighter build candidates. Not expensive to mod, and really improves the bike. The comfort is really really good, especially if you find a used corbin or Sargeant saddle. I'll never sell mine.
Let me know if you have any more questions...
-R

Also, someone was selling an abbreviated CBR1000 front fairing here recently, if I recall correctly...was that Crashrat? I was thinking that would look pretty boss on the Bandit. Also, a Yamaha FZ1 fairing would look pretty good too, and could probably be made to work pretty easily.

That's about how mine looked when I first got it. By the way SV650 headlight brackets work on those forks, and a Buell S1/Ducati Monster headlight is the best looking option for a round headlight. That's about $100 or less on fleabay.

Also, SV650 fork springs work in that fork, which are easy to find since so many people replace them on SV's. You should be able to find some aftermarket springs either on SVRider or fleabay. For the shock, stock hayabusa bolts up I believe, but the spring rate is pretty high. Early 2000 model GSXR fits too, but the spring rate is more soft. Both the busa and GSXR shocks have comp. and rebound adjustment and can be had for like $50 on fleabay too.

That's basically what I did to my Bandit I posted earlier and it turned out fantastic. That was such an awesome riding bike that cost next to nothing. By the way, I put about $1,200 in my Bandit and sold it on craigslist in 2hrs for $2,400...

Wyld, congrats on being my go to guy when I need info on this thing. I was on the Bandit forum (out of the U.K. if that's the one you're talking about) and saw quite a bit of buzz about Holeshot. Will definitely be taking a look at that. Unfortunately I'm not able to post on there because my registration is still waiting "approval from the administrators"...

Noob, are the fork diameters the same between the B6 and B12, or do the SV clamps mount to the frame the same as the fairing stay? Definitely good info that you've given me as all the bandit parts fiches only have the #'s for the square headlight.

Thanks for all the help so far guys, and as for the rest of the forum, sorry this isn't relative to the hawk ;) but rest assured the hawk isn't going on the back burner. I've got to get both bikes ready for my brother and I next summer. It'll be our first time riding together.

I did a google search for ya and the 12 uses 43mm legs while the 6 uses 41. That's just 1mm on either side of the circle so the SV brackets should work with some finesse.

http://clunkbucket.com/wp-content/up...dge_hammer.jpg

Here's one on eBay so you can get an idea of what they look like. $1.25 aint bad! In the pics I posted, the silver triangular shaped plates that hold the headlight, bolt onto those brackets. On 99-02 SV's the brackets had an extra tab for blinkers, but the '03-on second gen brackets don't.. if that matters.

Poppazuti, the Bandit site I was speaking of is http://maximum-suzuki.com/. It is well populated with an enthusiastic owner base of all three generations of Bandit. They also cover DR/DRZ stuff too. I've considered going all naked on the bandit, but I like the weather protection...believe it or not, it's on par or better than the Superhawk in that regard, and well...I live in Seattle, so it rains a little ;)
-R

Thanks to both of you for the links! I may pick up the headlight mounts and use them on the hawk, as I've gone naked with it and am not happy with the current mounts I have. I will do a search to find comparable fork sizes of naked bikes. I'm sure I can make something work.
Wyld, you know it's just a short 5 hour drive down to Corvallis if you want to give me a hand getting her back on the road ;)