Greetings from Western Washington...

Hey guys... (n-gals? :woohoo:)

New member here, but riding since 83 and now on my 3 KZ. Also an active member on KZ650.info and looking forward to adding what I can here.

Bought my first ride (1980 SX650) in Vegas when I was ~19 (mid 80's) and have luv'd that free 2 wheelin' feelin' ever since. I was hooked.

My next was a 80' KZ-1000ST (cafe on the left), which I NEVER should have sold. I had that ride for over 6 years and managed ~70k miles from it before I stripped the exhaust cam lobes. It got all of ~50mpg in the high altitude of Colorado and I suspect I ran it to lean for to long. Oh well... Lesson learned. But that ride set the hook for me to never give up riding.

In May of 99' I found a 77' KZ900Z1 (no R )o:)) that took a bit of cleanup, lotsa TLC, only a few parts and was scary fast. Even managed to outrun a new Suzuki 750 of the time with ease. Glad I sold it else I might be dead today... but I digress.

Here we are, ~13 years later and I managed to pickup a 79' KZ650-D2 (SR) .


May 2011 I visited a county swap meet in Lewis Co WA, spotted a KZ (hard for me to miss), struck up a conversation with the seller (Larry) and come to find it was his sons, who had no clue where the title was. He was asking 150bones at the time for the "complete" basket-case (more on this), but there was no title. DANM! I gave him my card and told him that if he ever found the title to call me... never expecting to hear from the man again. (BTW, it can take 2 years to get a lost title in WA)

So Jan 2012 rolls around and at this point I had totally forgotten about he bike. But I get a call from Larry late Jan asking if I was still interested in the bike. HE!! yes!!! (but you can't give that total expression to the seller) So I told him yes I was still interested, did he find the title? He said his son had found the title, signed it over to him and he was waiting to get the title in his name, from the State and it was going to take ~8wks. We agreed on a price (sorry, don't kiss-n-tell) and he said he'd call me when he received the title. I got the call on Thurs Mar 22nd and had it delivered on the 23rd, by his son! So during our conversation I was told that it ran when parked because he had changed jobs, got a truck and he wasn't motivated to do anything else after that. Well, who knows if this is the total truth but I'm inclined to believe people till I can prove them wrong.

Went to DMV to get the title transferred and asked when it was last registered... 1994! It's not run in ~18 years!!! That's why I call it my "complete" basket case. All the orig parts are there, sans the right side cover, which I will look for.

But my long-term with this ride... this may be a Mad Max ride. @32+YO the frame has surface rust under the tank and in all the nooks/crannies. Yes it's a labor of luv, but I do have some limits and plan to have this for a long long time to come. After all, I luv'd the movie and with our world looking as it is, Mad Max may not be that far off. O- Also, it's less of a theft target if it looks like crap, but purrs like a kitten. This is my goal with this KZ.



Cheers Guys-n-gals!!!

Welcome here, Chris!

Nice to see a recounting of your tale. Cool story.

Hi welcome home. I always liked the stance of the SR. Nice bike

Thanks Nate... Busy forum eh? Still getting a feel for it.

Thanks Peter... I've also always liked the stance of KZ's w/mags, but with all the spokes out there I know it's still a personal preference.


Cheers guys...