New (returning) Member

[badbmwbrad]

Meeting Sue Canada at the Finger Lakes rally reminded me that I was/am a member of this forum (now that my membership is renewed). 
My bike is a Polaris Silver 1983 R65LS with about 4,500 miles which went into storage in a semi-heated garage circa 1986.  I replaced its brake fluid and rode it around the local neighbor hoods after dark in December 2011 when it was first purchased.  It has since been stored in my garage on a Battery Tender. 
The tires are original fitment and its steering head bearing grease has hardened/separated.  At some future date, I'll fit new tires, re-pack the steering bearings and replace the original carburetor floats with ethanol-resistant floats.  Then I'll ride the wheels off of it.

[nhmaf]

Welcome to the forum (again)!
Definitely take care of the steering head bearing grease issue right away - not only will it make the bike safer to ride and better handling, you may avoid damaging the bearing races and not have to replace the bearings, which require pullers and/or MIG welder.

As long as the floats in the carbs still work properly (.ie don't sink) I wouldn't replace them.  The alcohol kit with the independent float arms requires new bowls (read:$) and the new black floats are a crap-shoot in my book.   Have an R100/7 with the alcohol floats and one or the other is always dripping gas, flooding, or having issues despite numerous attempts at fixing it.  My '82 R65LS is still running standard floats/arms and it works great - been running these for at least 10 years since I resurrected the bike.

[Barry]

I had a similar scenario when I bought mine at 28 years old and only 6000 miles. Same problem with the steering head and the swinging arm grease gone hard but the bearings were fine.  You'll have fun with the tyres. My front was so stiff you could let out all the air and it just sat there holding it's shape and supporting the weight of the bike. I found it very difficult to get the beads down into the well and they'll never come off until you do that so I decided to cut them off rather than struggle and possibly damage the rims. A very sharp knife deals with the rubber easily enough but the bead wires are tough to cut through.