New Here from NJ

Hi all, I’m Nick and I’m excited to be here! I just picked up my first bike, a 1982 GPz 550. I’ve wanted one for a while now so when popped up locally for a great price I couldn’t resist. It needs some work and while I’ve worked on cars plenty of times, bikes are new to me, so figured I’d join the forum in case I need help or anything like that. I’ll try and upload some photos of it later. Looking forward to posting here! 

Welcome to KZRider Nick.

Welcome Nick.
There is a lot of accumulated knowledge and experience here, don't hesitate to ask questions.
And we love pictures...

Welcome from the UK

Welcome aboard!

You will also find some important and interesting info here.   s3.amazonaws.com/gpzweb/index.html

I recommend downloading or otherwise copying everything you find of interest there. Lou died a few years ago, and his website is liable to disappear one day without warning.

Welcome Nick!

You had me at GeePeeZeee

Pictures, pictures, pictures please!

H.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I only have one photo right now, it's from immediately after I unloaded it from the truck. I'm not crazy about the paint (although the quality of the job is very good) and am probably going to be scavenging parts to bring it back to the original factory red as I work on it because I really do love the factory color. I've already found an era appropriate replacement seat for it because the current seat is pretty beat up (and the factory seat isn't super comfortably sized for me). The only real things I need to do before I can ride it are the oil, tires, and battery; the previous owner said it needed a new starter, but I tested the starter and even though it's a little rough it just sounds like it's not getting enough juice (the battery is ~6 years old), but it bump starts fine and I live on the apex of a hill so I'll save that repair for winter when I'm not riding it.

Looks like a good starting point. Personally, I would, at the very least, replace the brake fluid and check the valve clearances. Ideally, I would do all of the routine maintenance on the assumption that none of it had ever been done. Brake fluid is hydroscopic. Given enough absorbed moisture, the fluid can boil, leaving you with no brakes when you need them most. Badly out of adjustment valves can lead to burned valves, necessitating a serious repair job. Then there is lack of fork oil...........

Bu the way, when posting pictures, be sure to click Insert All so the pictures show up full size in the post.

Thanks! Good call on the brake fluid, valve check, and fork oil, I'll do those when I replace the battery. Just from reading the repair manual these all seem pretty manageable (at least compared to the equivalent work on a car), but I'll set aside a few days in the coming weeks to go through all this, 30 minute jobs do have a tendency to become three hour jobs after all. I did luck out in that one of the previous owners had a written list of everything he had done to the bike and what fluids and adjustments he did, but most of that was from 2020 and it was for more major service stuff like a clutch job and the entire brake assembly, so I'll focus on the smaller things right now.