1976 KZ900 Rebuild

I bought this bike in 1999 when I came to California. Paid $850 in San Diego and was my plan to fix it up a little and ride up to Vancouver. I made it, it ook me all summer to do - reason to be explained later.
I'll detail here what I have done over the years.
1st pic is before 1st teardown and inspect before setting off on my HWY1 adventure.

ah wtf ,

the suspense is killin me :woohoo: :laugh: :lol: :silly:

welcome.


leon

531blackbanshee wrote: ah wtf ,

the suspense is killin me :woohoo: :laugh: :lol: :silly:

welcome.


leon

Ditto on the welcome...and I hate cliff hangers! LOL! :silly:

There will be some gaps in photo documentation as I lost most of my stuff while I was in NYC and had my car broken into.
I bought the bike in '99 and did some basic maintenance to it. It had not been registered for 6 years prior to my purchase and managed to get it fired up once before I agreed to buy it. My buddy in San Diego had at the time a '79 KZ650 and he encouraged my in my growing love for the old KZ bikes.
We changed oil, finding large chunks of a previously destroyed clutch, ditched the chrome fender, and did some basic tuning. It was all I could afford to do at the time.
The stock carbs were a constant issue, they would never stay in synch, would get clogged all the time. I did many parking lot carb dissembles on my travels. One of the most memorable was having arrived in SF and secured a couch to surf on, I proceeded to rebuild the carbs on the coffe table in this shared apartment. Apparently I wore out my welcome immediately (understandable), and both I and my buddy were kicked out of the house.
As I said, I have lost most of photo documentation forn the early days but here is a picture of my buddies 650 - waiting for the usual cam chain replacement.

is that a k&n yamaha sticker on the front fork of your buddies 650?

leon

After languishing in a garage for a couple of years - I drove it from SF to San Diego in order to the most recent rebuild.
The cam chain was making a racket and I knew compression was poor from the first ring & hone job back in 1999.


The old LTD bars, the headlight ring and the banged up signal were just a few of the external components needing replacement.

Here it is in San Diego. Engine is out - came out so quick there was no pics on the process.

Got the cases split



And the pan contained some precious metals.
A lot of that junk was destroyed cam chain roller -
hence the noise and reason for teardown.




And this is one heavy son-of-a-bitch

531blackbanshee wrote: is that a k&n yamaha sticker on the front fork of your buddies 650?

leon

And yes that is an old k&n sticker on the fork leg of my buddies 650 ... The bikes in the background are an 81 xl500 and an 86 rm 125

www.knmotorcycles.com/

growing up that was the closest bike shop to us.
we would ride our bicycles out there and get parts for my buddies yz80.

norm mcdonald own's the bike shop he is the N in k&n filters (ken & norm).

they moved here from there, :lol: .

california to oklahoma,
it's kinda wierd how closely connected those two states can be sometimes. :blink:

to be so far apart i mean.

leon