New member Ohio looking for advice 1982 KZ100J

Hello everyone, I'm a new member to the site and I just wanted to introduce myself a little. First I'd like to say that there are a lot of great bikes and excellent ideas on this site! I've had a few motorcycles over the years, but have not been a rider for around five years now. I recently came across a 1982 KZ1000J on Craigslist for $500 and could not pass it up "I'm going to attach a few pictures"

The bike appears to be mostly stock and has 12,500 miles on it. I'm looking for a little advise on how to begin my project. I'd first like to get the bike running; I'm not even sure if the motor runs, but the seller assured me it did when he put it up in 2006. There is about a half a tank of old gas in the bike, it needs new tires, the clutch is hard as heck to pull, I would think it needs a new battery. I know I should obviously change the oil before I try and start it, but wanted to get some advice on what else I should do. I've never worked on any of my bikes before, but want to cut my teeth on my new KZ. I've ordered a Clymer service manual to provide me with a little direction.

My short term goal for the bike is to get it running correctly. My long term goal is to build a bit of a muscle/street fighter. Any advice and direction you can provide would be much appreciated! I've always loved the older Japanese bikes and actually owned a '78 KZ1000 that was nicely modified but was too young and dumb to know what I had and did not have the money to fix the minor issues it had so I just sold it.

Thanks,

David

I forgot to mention that I'm the third owner of the bike. The last owner had it painted white because that was a small dent on the tank. The original color was the 1982 silver color.

Thanks for any advice and checking out my post!

Welcome David.

Sounds like you got a good deal.
Once you get your manual, go through all the maintenance items in the maintenance schedule.
The bikes been sitting some years, so pretty well everything will need some attention.
Plus it will give you peace of mind, going through the entire bike, as you will know that everything is tight, lubed (if needed) and in proper working order.

Hi David,

Dave here and I too am beginning to rebuild the exact bike. Paste this link into your browser mybikes.ca/project_kz1000j.html there are a few pics so you can see the original colour.

I believe I have a manual for it in digital form as well if you interested I can post it on my site for you to download...

My project is in the works, but to get yours running I'd do the following:

Drain old gas out and put fresh gas. Install a new battery. Try firing it up...
From my experience the gas sitting that long will harden inside the carbs plugging all the tiny holes and passageways in the carbs. When I've taken carbs apart that have been sitting for years it's as if someone had run varnish into them...they will probably need to be taken apart and cleaned thoroughly. I have some written info on carb cleaning 101, etc...

Here's what I would do:

1 - Remove air box - I used an exacto knife and cut the air intake boots off. Order new ones from z1enterprises.com
2 - Remove carbs and clean
3 - Dump old gas, fill tank with new gas
4 - install a gas line filter
5 - Prior to start remove spark plugs and spray wd40 into top of cylinders.
Turn engine over spray wd40

Anyways, thought I'd share some info with you.
Let me know if wanna chat more...

Regards,

Dave

Thanks for the advice guys, I need to find time over the next week or two to clean the tank and carbs, change the oil and see if I can get it to fire up!

Dave, that's great that we are going to be working on the same year/model bike at around the same time! The Bassani exhaust on yours is great; I'd love to find something original like that to put on my bike over the winter! I'd love to check out your manual if you post it online. I think the stock silver color was great. Going to be a long time before I'm ready to change to color of my bike. Looks like you've got a nice project to work on. Are you going to stay semi-stock or are you going to continue to modify?


Thanks for the reply!

David

killer bike...have fun
welcome
Craig

Hey David,

I'll add some more pics to the webpage along with uploading the manual for you to my ftp site.
You can retrieve it at: paste this link into Internet Explorer ftp:/coley.ca

I'll set the username to: kz1000j password to: kz1000j

I'll try and do it know so you should be able to get it...

If you can't retreive it message me.

Dave

Hey David,

I just uploaded the manual to my server...

I had to change the password: fixmyride4no$

Open internet explore and type ftp:/coley.ca for the url...

You'be prompted to supply the username and password.

Username is kz1000j password is fixmyride4me$

Dave

far to many beers tonight...

the username is: kz1000j and the password is: fixmyride4no$

this should work...