TOPIC:

I did have this in the New Members forum but now that it has progressed to this point, I figure it really should go here instead. Soooooooo, I got this bike for $175 off ebay that had sat outside at Cape Cod for several years. It was pretty nasty. It sat at my house for about a year with no progress except for trying out my new (at the time) paint gun, hence the yellow paint. Last Easter I decided to bring it inside and start on it.



I stripped it down to basics...



She sat since then due to working on the Mustang all summer. In the fall I started stripping back the harness and putting new ends on all the connectors. Fortunately, the motor is within 2psi on a leakdown test. I've been looking at many of the projects here and have gotten some great inspiration from them.


Then on Thanksgiving I moved it into a different room and tore the seat apart. It wasn't pretty.



I started painting her:





And then I mocked up a couple of different looks




And decided to go with the dragbars. Painted the rest of the body and motor and mocked up the seat:




She sat that way for quite a while until this weekend when I decided to make some real progress. I welded up a new taillight/lic plate mount, completed the seat, painted all the odds and ends a gloss black, mounted the handlebars, figured out what to do for directionals and mounted them. Yes, I put the fronts in the rear and the rears in the front. Never did like the floppy stalk look in the back. I like it much better this way tight to the frame. Note that I also removed the rear fender, I think it gives it a cleaner look. I got some shorter shocks at a yard sale and mounted them after painting them. Now I can actually touch the ground!!!! I have a few odds and ends to finish up and then hopefully next week it will go outside and get fired up!!
Eventually I will need to get shorter cables!

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Looks cool. I like all your mods and the paint looks great but I don't think the stickers are the right size.

Thanks and I agree on the stickers. I got them at a yard sale for a quarter and have been moving them from place to place in my shop for a few years. I decided to toss them on it to see what I thought. I think they need to go away. I do want something for accents on the take and side covers but I think I'll go with something black for consistency. I have to hunt down a wiring diagram since I was an idiot and didn't mark anything when I stripped it down and now I can't remember what goes to what inside the headlight. Smart move on my part. I'd like to hunt down a dual front disk eventually but main goal is to get it on the road ASAP so I can start tearing down and rebuilding what I'm using for a daily driver:

Black would look cool. Maybe in a tribal design.
This a link to an online manual. It should have wiring diagram for your ride. It is not small.
www.metrovationinc.com/christemple/KZ550.pdf

I just did a bondo repair on four dents on my projects tank.
There really is an art to it that I don't have. I must of coated and sanded two dozen times. Next time I am paying a pro.

Well, it has been a while since I updated this. Since the last update I sorted out all the electrical issues (with tons of help from using the SEARCH here on kzrider, thanks everyone who have asked questions in the past and those who gave such fantastic answered!), I now have lights, horn, ignition (kinda important). YAY!! I rebuilt the petcock, replaced the fuel lines, put an inline fuel filter in, tore down the carbs WAY too many times to clean out crap and stuff. I think I'm gonna replace all the screws and clamps with velco, might be easier . I put on pods and now she runs. I did replace the hokey flaming skulls with something a bit better. Got tags on it yesterday and rode it to work for the first time today. There are some little things I need to do like replace the cables with shorter ones but with gas $4 a gallon, I can do that was time and $ permits...for now I'm just gonna roll it.

Here it is last night before its maiden ride.





Now I'm gonna work on my VW bug project. This winter, the 440LTD get its turn, it needs a complete cosmetic rebuild, all the rubber replaced, etc.

I love it. Looks wicked:woohoo:

Nice looking bike, but my skinny ass says NO to the seat, it hurts just looking at it.

Thanks for the input, I'm pretty happy with it. I got a bunch of looks on the ride today, made all the frustration worth while. The seat isn't as uncomfortable as I thought it might be, got much better once I bumped up the preload on the shocks a bit too. I used a very high density polyfoam (industrial packing wrap to be exact) between the cover and the pan and the seat is nice and wide so there is pretty good support. Don't think I'd want to take it x-country but then, I think my wrists would give out first anyway. Have a poker run in a few weeks, will see if I have numb butt after that. When it came down to it, I didn't have much choice if I wanted to fit on the bike, my inseam is rather short and the stock seat must have 6" of foam in it. The way it is now I can touch both feet (balls of the feet) at a light.
Including the price of the bike initially and new boots to celebrate, I have less than $400 total in it, though I have no idea how many hours I've put into it in the last 3 years. Considering the current price of used small and midsized bikes, it is a bargain.