Newbie alert!

Hiya folks!
I picked up a '79 650C about a year ago from a friend who'd lost interest in his "restoration experiment." Got about 8 boxes of stuff, the bike is stripped down to the frame. Luckily the guy was pretty organized, also included were about 3 dozen labeled baby food jars with nuts, bolts, etc in it
Anyway, I'm a total new guy when it comes to motorcycles; I'm sure I'll have lots of questions that are pretty basic stuff for a lot of folks here, but I'm glad I stumbled onto this site! I really had no idea KZs are such a passion for so many folks

Any pointers to good parts sites would be much appreciated!

regards,
Matt

Hey Matt welcome to the site. There are a lot of 650 guys on here so finding help will be easy for ya. The best site for parts is z1enterprises.com. The owner Jeff is a member here and will have almost everything you will ever need for parts. His prices are great and he ships fast.

Welcome to the forum!

Matt, welcome to the KZR Nation. Great to have yet another KZ650 here. We've all been in that dark room at some time and there are lots of members who can shine a light on your problems.

Preliminaries:
1) In your web browser add these to your favourites/bookmarks:

a) Z1 Enterprises (Kawasaki/Small Fours/KZ650/KZ650-C3-1978/:

www.z1enterprises.com/catalog.aspx?pid=KZ650-C3-1979

b) Kawasaki.com (Owner Info/Search By Model/Motorcycle/1978-650cc-All Types-All Names/650 Custom/Parts Diagrams/:

www.kawasaki.com/DefaultFrame.aspx?strCo...79%26SHOWVEHTABS%3d1

2) Later, you will be introduced to the joys of the WG Coil Repowering Modification... and its variants.

3) Get a workshop manual ASAP... you can't become self sufficient without it.

4) Add the year, model and your location to your signature now... much better feed-back will result.

5) Prepare to get a few tools... remember these Metric looking star (Philips) looking bolt heads are not really metric standard (MIS). They are actually Japanese standard (JIS)... that's why all your slots look distorted by the PO and why only your bike's tool set screw driver seems to work so great.

6) Now we need pictures, pictures and more pictures of all these boxes and jars... and still more as they start to take shape.

Once you're on the road you may have to think about changing your user from Alone-in-the-dark to Riding-in-the-sun. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Best of success!

Thanks for the welcome! Z1 has already laid a lot of my parts concerns to rest, thanks! bill, bookmarks duly added, and, coil-repower-dahuhwhat? I'm sure I'll get there. For now, here's a LINK for my project, pictures should be coming soon!

regards,
Matt

30 year old bikes will have wiring issues including poor/faulty switch contacts, connector contacts and wiring.

Chief among these is the wire between the battery (+) and the coil(s) input. One of our carb gurus, Wired George (WG) has shared his solution for this. It is relay circuit that by passes all these losses and delivers the battery (+) directly to the coil(s) via an additional automotive relay. Typically, the improvement in reliability and performance is immediate and significant. You want this modification on your bike! :dry:

WG has the info on his site:

64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:XbRLyAdPyt...n&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
(Not sure why the GREEN face appears in the URL... must be doing something wrong?)

I have info on how I implemented his mod on my bike on my Photo bucket site:

s259.photobucket.com/albums/hh311/bill_w...lay%20Modifications/

I may be the best $5 to $10 you can spend on a vintage bike.

Best of success.

PS

Oustanding pics at your link.