First Bike, KZ550 Project

Hey Everyone,

I picked up this KZ550 a few months back and have been making steady progress so far. I work long hours so I get a few hours here and there to work on the bike. Anyways, these posts will have plenty of pictures and hopefully will go all the way from pushing it into my truck to at least rideable. I'm just gonna toss in some photos from the day I got it home and we will go from there! I have already learned so much on here just in a few short weeks.

So first thing I am tackling is the wiring obviously and we will see if this think cranks over at all!

The wiring on my bike looked just like that when i got it . electrical spaghetti
The engine looks like its from a GPZ
but i could be wrong

gut that wiring

Wiring has been gutted completely, I've only left a few bits but from here it will be fresh. I'm doing everything on a budget I picked up the bike for only a few hundred bucks. I am installing new coils plugs and wires right off the bat. I'll have pictures of all that soon!

Alrighty Fellas, I'm moving right along on my project. I am learning a lot here so thank you all for your limitless knowledge. I have hundreds of pictures but will just hit a few of them to kinda show what I've done plus all the little stuff that I forgot to take pictures of but this has been a fulfilling project and learning experience!

If anybody has suggestions on anything I've done to improve it i'm all ears.

But what has eventually come to be a (almost running) bike, I can ride it sometimes and have narrowed it down to the IC Igniter box. My question is does the physical box have to be grounded? It is intermittent and when it works the bike fires up quick and sound healthy around 3K with the choke on and after only about 5 minutes I have the choke off and 700RPM. Please let me know your thoughts and I will post some more photos of the current state of the bike soon.

CJ550 wrote:
My question is does the physical box have to be grounded?

No, the black/yellow wire on the ignitor is the ground wire.
But the mess in your wiring harness tell me every color is possible to ground.
Do you know the exact year of build of the bike?

I will check my ground connection today, I have it wired as the diagram shows in my manual, its a KZ550 A-2.

And that's true i do the the black/yellow to ground. May be silly but, I have it to the (-) on the battery should it be running to the frame?

CJ550 wrote: May be silly but, I have it to the (-) on the battery should it be running to the frame?

On the KZ650, yes, there is a thick wire from the battery's negative terminal that goes to the top rear engine mount on the right side.

rstnick wrote:

CJ550 wrote: May be silly but, I have it to the (-) on the battery should it be running to the frame?

On the KZ650, yes, there is a thick wire from the battery's negative terminal that goes to the top rear engine mount on the right side.

Exactly. See diagram below. Ed

On the 550, the frame is grounded, but does not have to be for ignition.
As Scirocco mentioned, the igniter body does need to be grounded. Neither do the coils.
The frame needs ground for the horn button on earlier models. ( A dedicated ground wire for the horn button didn't come til much later.)
The engine needs to be grounded for the starter and oil light and neutral light.

The biggest issue with using the Dyna coils is the possibility of the coil mounting hardware coming into contact with the coil wire screws. There needs to be a lot of clearance as vibration has a way of making the coils move. EDIT: It looks like you are using the farther mounting hole, so the clearance should be ok.

I see you have some of the valve buckets removed. Theoretically they are all the same, but in practice, some fit into some holes better than others. You will want to make sure they go back into the same hole they came out of. If you lost track of that, then at least make sure none are sticking. A slow-to-return valve can get hit by the piston.

You guys rock! I cleaned the ground connection and ran the wire to where the battery was grounded to and she starts right up!

I did keep track of the valves and caps, After measuring I have one valve that was just barley out of clearance, I forget the exact amount off hand but it is minimal.

Next up on the list is the exhaust leak from the header where it goes into the head. Its hardly sealing at all but I'll post up a current picture as I will keep trying to update the forum!