77/78 KZ650 resurrection

I'm finally almost out of the woods with this bike! I still need to get the carbs sync'ed to the bike, and have the valves checked, but it's running pretty well. A little sputtering and popping on cylinder #1 when cold, but it warms up pretty quick.

From the frame and engine numbers it's a '77 engine in a '78 frame but it's titled as a '77. I bought it in August last year. According to the PO a mechanic said it just needed new coils and it'd fire right up. Hahahaha, yeah, not funny. It's my first bike and I'm just learning to ride on it. It ran me $600 and the odo was right at 7k. From all the paperwork we found in the document compartment with the owner's manual, the bike hadn't been registered or insured since 1983. The dot number on the front tire suggested it was made in June 1985. Either way this bike had probably sat for at least 20 years.

As you can probably tell, I changed the plugs, oil, oil filter, coils, and put a battery in it. Nuthin. The starter just clicked. Lucky for me in the fall people dump parts on ebay and I put in a new one for $25-ish. Also the rear brake and rear brake linkage needed to be replaced. It'd turn over but not start.

Then I walked into mistake number 2. I took the bike to a local guy that a couple people recommended to get it running. $300 later her changed the points, airfilter, a clutch something, rebuilt the petcock, and cleaned the carbs a bit. Sure the bike ran but it was more like "undead" and hungry for brains and money.

My brother in law rode the bike home. We noticed that when he'd rev the engine, rust would spray out the bottom of the exhaust. So I found a used old MAC 4-2 off a Spectre on ebay for $100 and snapped it up. It still ran horribly if you could get it started and I noticed the spark was weak. I put an 80's ignition in it, did the coil wire mod, and changed the coils to some 80's 3ohm and the spark got better. I took the carb rack to the best import bike shop in the area for a rebuild and rejet (at some point I hated the airbox enough to put pods on). The carb overhaul made a huge difference as I was getting hanging rpms before when I could get it to start. Now the pilots are at 17.5 and the main jets are at 110. Also had the tank derusted, pressure tested, double lined and sand blasted at the local radiator shop. A surprisingly huge difference happened when I cleaned the mechanical voltage regulator. The worst of my problems evaporated. Cylinder #1 was still rough so I put a new plug in and reset the pilot screw and it's mostly ok. Also got those 80's vintage tires replaced with Shinko 712s.

This is what it looked like right after I changed the exhaust:


Here she is today:


To make matters real fun, the bike was sold without a title, just a bill of sale. So while it was going through the theft check to see if the bike was stolen, I was taking my motorcycle learner's permit test! Luckily I only got two wrong. I've put over 70 miles on it in less than a month and I'm definitely getting to the point where riding is a lot of fun. Still have to get on some bigger roads with more traffic and do some faster twisties, but the basic around town riding I'm pretty comfortable with now.

Needless to say, I've learned a LOT about buying and restoring a kz. A bit of a baptism by fire. There was a point when I figured out I could have bought a running bike for less and I just about gave up on it. But by that point I was only about $600 from crossing the finish line. All totaled I've probably put about $2400 into it and a ton of hours working on and researching this machine's issues. Lots and lots of thanks to this site and members for all the help!

In the process, I've oddly enough, fallen in love with KZ's. Both my bro in laws think I'll want a bigger bike in a year or two and they think I'll want a Harley, but I'm already eyeing kz1000's and 1100's! :woohoo:

Congrats Mullineaux!

Looking good. Glad to hear that you persevered, and got 'er back on the road. Alot of people probably would have gotten half way through and left it their garage for a few more years. Hope you enjoy the (hybrid!) 650.

Since you now have the diZease, I think we all know that you won't do anything silly like buy a Harley. I still struggle a little with cold starts on my 650 as well, but I think that's par for the course. Mayhaps you have a lead wrist, and will want something bigger, but you may be surprised at how much fun these mid-sized 650's are to ride. I thought much the same when I got mine, but 3 years later, and I'm not really looking for anything bigger displacement just yet. (Law enforcement is pretty strict in my neck of the woods, and its hardly worth it.....)

Enjoy the summer on the resurrected wheels!

Jonny

Idk, I got my bike up to 60mph for the first time yesterday. Dave asked me, "how'd you like to ride it like that for 3-4hrs? " Hmmm not so much. I wanna say it was running at 5.5k-6k-ish rpms. Just feels kind of like I'm flogging it. I sorta wish it was a 6 speed.

Also reading some threads here, it seems I have b1 forks. The only '78 thing about it may be the frame.

If you were turning 5500 - 6000 rpm at 60mph you really were flogging it! Check your sprocket sizes. If they are correct (16/42), your clutch is slipping. On a '77 KZ650 6000 rpm = 80 mph. At 60 mph you should be turning 4500 rpm. Ed

Hmmm.... Well, I do have some clutch issues, namely that it sticks. The clutch was really hard to pull and last night I adjusted it and oiled the clutch cable which helped a bit. A lot of times it didn't want to down shift. I'd come to a stop, press the shifter all the way to what I thought was first, try to go and almost stall it, pull the clutch, try again and nothing, shift up, double shift down and finally I'm in first. Similarly with upshifting I'd lift the shifter and have to hold it and wait for a "click" feeling. It's intermittent, not all the time, and usually in the 1-3 range. Switching from 20w50 to Mobil 1 4T 10w40 (for wet clutches) helped but didn't solve everything.

I also have a suspicion that cylinder #1 isn't pulling its weight. It's the only plug that fouls quickly. I don't think it's ignition because #4 is fine. I had the carbs rebuilt and they could need to be synced to the bike. But also I need to have the valves checked. They could be tight, need shimming, or something.

Also I'm still learning to ride. This was the fastest I'd gone a bike so the exhilaration could have skewed my senses. I definitely felt like I was pushing the bike. I know I've checked the tach at 50mph and was at 4k-4.5k.

How did you adjust the clutch? Did you use the Kawasaki Service Manual to make the proper adjustments at each of the the 3 adjustment places? If not, let me know as there is a link you can use. Also, what spark plugs are you currently using? Ed

I'm using B7ES plugs. I only adjusted the clutch at the handle. I only had to pull it a little to shift so I switched it so that at a bit more than halfway the bike shifts. I have a service manual, it was just late and I didn't want to get too crazy into a fix when I did it.

I did a cold compression check (didn't know it should be hot) and found my compressions were:

dry: 80 ; 130 ; 135 ; 145
wet: 155 ; 150 ; 150 ; 165

I'll check #1 again after I tun the bike for about 20min sometime today.

By wet, do you mean with a teaspoon of oil inserted? If so, your rings are not sealing in that cylinder for whatever reason (scored cylinder, sticking piston rings or wear - sticking rings being the most likely). Poor combustion can explain the fouled spark plug. It could also be a bad HT lead or cap.

BTW, your example is excellent of showing that buying cheap is almost always costlier than paying more for a solid item. Been there, done that - many times :blush: The only time I've done good was when I bought a pair of '77 KZ650s for the eqv. of USD 3100* and had all the parts I needed to build me one very nice 650 - the only thing I bought was a pair of fork gaiters.

However, you've learned a lot, and that's hard to put a price on. You've done good! Now take a MSF course and learn to ride properly

*While 3+ grand may not sound so cheap to you, consider that a a new ZZR 1400 cost the eqv. of USD 49,000 in this country.

Ok, whew! I took the bike out for a 20 min ride and got the engine warm, then checked the compression and got:

dry: 145 ; 135 ; 130 ; 135
wet: 160 ; 140 ; 150 ; 150

This isn't awesome, but I feel like I have a lot less to worry about knowing that things line up a lot better when hot. And yes the wet test is with a teaspoon of oil.

Yeah, like I said, I had zero motorcycle knowledge coming into this. Never even rode one before. All my mechanical experience comes from having a '73 VW Superbeetle as a teenager. It was also air cooled but more through an oil cooler than fins. So I was expecting to learn a lot, maybe not this much, but I knew I was hoping it'd only be spark plugs. Didn't think it'd be a frankenbike, heck it looks pretty clean and a lot of people are surprised it's a '77!

As for the MSF I probably won't take it. I've reviewed a lot of what they teach on line and the class looks like something that would bore the bageebus out of me. There are good things in there to know, like the slow, look, press, roll on turns, but walking a bike back and forth in the friction zone more than once would make me feel like I'm wasting my time. Plus the only slots available are in the mid-late summer and riding a bike with a full helmet, jeans, boots, leather jacket, and gloves in 85+ degF heat all day sounds like a crappy time.

Perhaps CSS or the eqv. then? Getting proper basic education, preferably before you learn too many bad habits, of how to ride can save your bacon further down the road.

Since compression is good, check the spark plug cap and HT lead. Also, if you run ND or NGK sparkplugs expect them to die if wet soaked only once.

It's weird when you pick someone else's project, even if it was their 1980's project. I went to put on a new clutch cable this weekend and it was too short. Not a little either, unusable too short. I measured my clutch cable and it's 60.5", the replacement was 52.5". I did some research and found a 58.5" cable and ordered one. I looked into the models that part fit and it looks like my bike might have the handlebars of a kz1000G. Can anyone with more experience confirm or deny that?

Another slightly odd twist about this bike. I kept getting this feeling that I'm finishing someone else's chopper. I put on the black tank that had come with the bike. Ok it was black with purple flames. I had it dipped lined, pressure tested and stripped and painted it flat black. I also painted the plastics flat black, originally they were rattle can gloss black. I put on the lowering links that were in a box of parts that cam with it. It has non-standard pull back handle bars. The front signals were changed from long stem to short stem by a PO and I intend to switch the long stem rear signals to a license plate frame variety. I might nix the grab rails while I'm at it.

So I kept getting this feeling of finishing on someone else's vision. Essentially someone left the bike in a friend's barn for almost 30 years, that person was made an offer on the bike and sold it. I picked it up from the guy that bought it out of the barn. But I have the name of the last "owner" that stored it in a barn, it's on the insurance certificate i found in the owner's manual. So I decided to look him up. Because of what I found I won't use specifics but I could only find one person in the US (using google) with his name and that person's birthday would have made him in his middle 20's when the bike was stored in the barn. About 10 years after storing the bike he was convicted of murder several states away. :blink: Apparently he got into a domestic dispute and burnt down his house and his wife hid in a closet instead of fleeing and died in the fire.

It's weird that 30 years later I'm sort of finishing this guy's build. It's kinda weird that I'm out there riding down the road on a bike that at one point belonged to a now convicted murderer. Shrug, the choices we make dictate the lives we lead. I swear there's a song in that whole story somewhere.