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I picked up this 81 305 CSR last summer with the idea that it might make a good bike for my wife. It only has 1504 miles on it and for the most part it looks brand new. I screwed around with it a little when I first got it and it did not want to crank over like it should, the starter was struggling to turn it over even with the plugs out. All winter this has been bothering me, I know the engine is not stuck but I thought it might be tight for some unknown reason.

Since I have another 305 that I know runs good I figured worst case scenario I could always just swap engines but first I figured I'd just swap in the known good starter motor. This has sort of been one of those I want to know but if it turns out to be something serious I know I'm going to be pissed off sort of things, so I've been putting it off. On Wednesday I decided to to swap the starters and low and behold the starter was bad, the one I put in spins it over just like it should. I got it to pop a bit with some ether so I was pretty happy. I still find it really strange that a bike with such low miles would have a bad starter but it's still good news.

So yesterday's project was to pull the carbs and clean them up. I got them all apart, unplugged the jets but when I was going to put them back together one of the needles was messed up (the little spring loaded pin was stuck)and no amount of carb cleaner was having any effect. Just to see if the part was available I went to the Kaw site and found out it was still a good number and was used on 465 different models, so far so good. Then I checked the Ron Ayers site to see what one would cost. Holy crap $25.14 just for the needle, the little clip that fits on it is NLA but it would have cost $4.03. As luck would have it I've got a spare set of carbs laying around here so I just robbed a needle from them.

I got everything put back together with only a small amount of cursing required to get the stock airbox and boots installed. The bike now starts and runs like a new bike. I did notice that the tach is not working properly but as luck would have it I've got a spare gauge cluster sitting around here. I connected the tach cable to it and once I change out the tach that problem will be solved. I really don't know why I bought the set of carbs or the gauges, the only reason I can think of is they were cheap and possibly I was already buying something I needed from the same seller. I guess the moral of the story is you can never have too many spare parts whan it comes to these old bikes.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with this bike, the wife has zero interest in riding it. Maybe I'll ride it to work a few times this year. It is so pristine I just get a kick out of looking at it. Maybe I'll bring it to Mid-Ohio to use as a pitbike and put a big price on it to see if someone will bite. I did buy an NOS front fender cheap that I want to install, maybe that will be today's project.

That is a nice 305 and having spares stuffed away somewhere always comes in handy.

Man, I'd love to fall into a nice 200/250/305 to use as an around-town bike...and to teach my daughters to ride a bike.

when ever i part a bike out, the pieces go into labeled bins in the garage. i know if i sell the stuff i will regret it later. the few dollars are no consolatation to knowing i have the hard to find, commonly bad parts these bikes often need.