Another KZ on the road

In a fit of madness I sold my '75 Z1 last summer, and have been kicking myself ever since. I still had the '76 KZ900 on the road, but it is too nice a bike to ride every day to work, so when a co-worker donated his dad's old bike to me I was glad to take it in and give it a home. It is a '78 KZ650SR, with 72,000 km on it.

It hadn't run in years, and had a number of issues. The steering head bearing was the worse I had ever felt, almost like a steering lock set to the center position. It needed a rear disc, rear tire, brake pads all around, new turn signals, a flatter set of bars and some console bulbs. The carb boots were all hardened, so once the air box came off I swore it would not go back on. I got some air pods instead, and did the soccer cone hack on them to richen out the mixture. A fast rattle can paint job and voila.



This has to be the easiest starting, nicest handling Kawasaki I have owned. The KZ900 is now used for Sunday drives only. What does this project still need? The front brake lever and master cylinder are from another bike, the side stand also looks like it was donated from something much smaller (extreme lean angle at the moment), and it would be nice to have a center stand (or big stand as we used to call it when I was a kid).

Link to the "soccer cone hack", never heard of this....
*edit* quick google search and I found the soccer cone mod. Interesting!
Nice bike. BTW, lovin the color choice!

Randombeat wrote: Link to the "soccer cone hack", never heard of this....

Nice bike. BTW, lovin the color choice!

Here is the soccer cone hack: ltd454.proboards.com/thread/3902/running...s-stock-jetted-carbs

I went for the brightest green I could find at the local Canadian Tire, turns out to be engine enamel, and very close to Kawasaki green.

Nice save Bugout...glad you put it back on the road.

Looks great Bugout Nice work

Nice work! Don't sell that 650

I sold mine years ago and regret it. Some people say it's the best KZ Kawasaki ever made