KZ650 Bike For An Old Teacher

I got this bike along with a parts bike for $500 in august. It was a non-runner and the electrical harness was chopped to all hell by the the previous owner. I put in new coils, wiring harness, and a bunch of little other things before I got it running for the first time. I took it out to warm it up before I got the points, timing, and carbs properly tuned up, but when I pulled the clutch in to shift it acted like I just tried to slam it into gear without pulling in the clutch.

I took it back in and tore the motor apart to see what was wrong. Turns out the PO had the motor apart too and pretty much just decided to leave out a bunch of important parts including the transmission shaft locating rings which caused the mainshaft to slide over when I pulled in the clutch and try to engage the gears. This is why the motor killed. The dogs on the gears were worn so I pulled down the motor from the parts bike and stole the transmission from that motor and dropped it in this one.

I figured though that as long as I have it all apart I would shine and polish everything, paint everything up, and put in some of the nicer parts from my stash.

While the bike was all torn down my best friend from highschool was telling me that he wanted to get his dad back into motorcycling and was looking to buy a bike for him. His mom and dad were my teachers in highschool and his dad was my coach for wrestling and took our team to six straight state championships. Our school graduates about 20 kids a year and we were beating schools that graduated 2000 kids a year. He was like a second father to me for most of my life so I was immediately on board and we are gonna give him this bike for christmas.

Then last weekend I decided to see how long it would take me to put a bike together from scratch. Everything was polished and painted already so all I had to do was put it together. Here it is.

The frame painted in rustoleom rattle can black. 10:00 P.M.

Motor is in. The motor and the frame together are pretty heavy for one guy to lift on the stand I'll tell you that much. 10:37 P.M.

Got the forks installed. 12:28 A.M. Why did it take so long to get the forks installed?? The forks were the only thing I hadn't polished yaet and they had that stupid yellow haze that I had to grind off. After I got both polished and installed I realized that one of them was about an inch longer then the other. Must be a KZ1000 shock. So I grabbed a spare 650 shock out of the barn and polished it. Went to install it and whaddya know. It was the wrong side. So I grabbed the other and polished it. Finally got them in though.

Next, I got the airbox, battery box, wiring harness, headlight, gauges, cables and other stuff on there. 2:12 A.M.

I put the carbs in on this one along with throttle cables. 2:34 A.M.

Got the rear end on in this one. Both tires were scrubbed with soap and water before I polished any components that were bare metal. 4:43 A.M.

And now with athe tank, tail, and sidecovers on. the only thing missing is the tail light and rear turn since I'm still not sure which ones I'm going to use. 5:35 A.M

The tins are painted Yamaha R1 blue. Least I think that's what it's called. Sorry for the picture quality their all from my camera phone.

Looks great! Very nicely done!

this is what keeps me going. posts like this. great job, you made my day.

Hello it is time to wake up now (sleeping)

bike looks great