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Oooh man, some parts vibrated off!



Looks like you're on your way to a rebuild. Keep us posted.

No offense intended, but comparing the first picture to the last it would appear that you're loosing ground. Have you been parting it out, or was it simply parked overnight in a bad neighborhood?

I parked it for a year at my parents place. Then one day this winter my friend had his big work truck out and about town, so I thought it would be about time I moved it back to my place and made space at my parent's house for that 1978 KZ1000 that I don't have.

It took me just under 90 minutes to tear it down from the photos above to the engine and frame. Actually, not true, I had the carbs off already. Isn't it scary when you know the bike so well you know all the bolt sizes by heart?

Here it is in my garage, cleaned up a bit - note this rebuild is just to get it running and sold. I'd love to keep it but one KZ650 is enough... or is it???

A week later the electrical system was running off an old KZ650B2/C2 harness and being installed.

Check out the super shiny chrome swingarm - This bike has more chromed parts than I originally thought:

- Chromed swing arm, rear axle stoppers, adjusters
- Chromed torque link
- chromed peg mounts
- chromed shift lever

Shiny Shiny rims.

Rear taillights are off some Yamaha XS.
Fender Eliminator came with the bike, but doesn't fit North American license plates.

Stock handlebars turned out to be too high - previous owner had cut a bunch of things short for the clip-ons (which I have kept).

For reference, the clip-ons were Tomacelli brand. Sounded nice so I kept them. This bike also had the left side exhaust, original seat, Marzocchi shocks, and a 3-Phase stator all of which I kept.

Here's more stuff installed:

- carbs rebuilt, rejetted with Emgo pods I had lying around
- stock handlebars (too high to be cool)
- note the awesome scraped up points cover from last year's crash
- Kerker in the corner will be going on this bike (was also smashed up in last year's crash)

My gf is so awesome she helped me turn the bike around (mostly I just told her to break the fall should the bike tip over).

Front brake is going in. The old caliper was seized up solid so I found some other caliper but I couldn't rescue the metal brake line. Detail photos later.

Yay for KZ front turn signals!

Yay for swiping the 3-phase stator!

Yay for the previous owner converting it from field coil to stator!

I like the front fender. I'm not sure what bike it's from but I thought about swapping that out too.

Oh, and the side stand is chromed too!

For the record: KZ650B2 caliper fits on the B1, but I couldn't extract the piping from the B1, it was fused to the caliper. Had to get creative with the brake hose routing.

If you can get your hands on Deutsch connectors, they are great - sealed, and robust.

B2 petcock works on a -B1, which doesn't have vacuum for fuel. I just put some gasket maker in the petcock, plugging the main port. So now "ON" or "RES" is OFF, and "PRI" is ON, and there is NO reserve!

Note: Emgo Pods are cheaper than buying a new airbox.

Note 2: I don't know what "Air Passage Plugs" are, so I just put in Air Screws and unscrewed them 2 turns, I hope this works.

The bike came with this very nice Fender Eliminator and tail-light. Nice.

You almost don't notice the Yamaha XS side lights...

You can also see the superbike bars in the background.

Blade Fusebox is a must and costs <$10.

It is just tied on with cable ties, but is secure enough.
A cover would be nice, but not essential.

Check out that chrome swing arm! Bling!

You can find these NGK Spark Plug splicers for about $7. They are useful when your coils are still good but some numpty has hacked off the wires. This turned out to be a bit tight of a bend so I lengthened a bit afterwards.