'78 KZ 650 Refreshing/Upgrade Project

Jonny wrote: Once again.... Good news, Bad news.
Forks cleaned up all nice, and for the most part assembly was a breeze. I mean the hurdles you kind of expect were there, spinning the bolt at the bottom, Figuring out that a piece of 1.5 inch ABS pipe makes and excellent seal driver when you sand down the outside a little. The usual..

Yeap I had to bevel(on my bench grinder) the edge of a piece of schedule 80 water pipe to drive my seals in my KZ1000.

My lower allen headed bolt was spinning so I had to reach inside the fork tubes to hold the plunger assembly. I slid a medium size chisel down into them and held the hex shaft of the chisel with a 5/8" socket and extension.

Upon reassembly I bought a metric bolt with the 17mm head and pressed it into an old 3/8" drive 10 mm socket I had laying around. I then took it too my shop and brazed it in there permanently. Now I just put that socket on a long extension and can hold the plunger without any problems. I also reinstalled my Progressive springs too.

sbc1320 wrote: ..........................My lower allen headed bolt was spinning so I had to reach inside the fork tubes to hold the plunger assembly. I slid a medium size chisel down into them and held the hex shaft of the chisel with a 5/8" socket and extension. Upon reassembly I bought a metric bolt with the 17mm head and pressed it into an old 3/8" drive 10 mm socket I had laying around. I then took it too my shop and brazed it in there permanently. Now I just put that socket on a long extension and can hold the plunger without any problems. I also reinstalled my Progressive springs too.

Too bad Kawasaki didn't use the same hex -hole method on all the fork cylinders (Ed says with envy). Sadly, they used just a round hole on some models - like my KZ650-C1 (see pics). The factory tool looks like a reamer that gets jammed into the hole. I made a tool, some folks use broomsticks successfully, and Racetech now sells a tool for the round hole. I'd love to hear the reasoning of the guy that thought that was a good idea. Ed

650ed wrote:

sbc1320 wrote: ..........................My lower allen headed bolt was spinning so I had to reach inside the fork tubes to hold the plunger assembly. I slid a medium size chisel down into them and held the hex shaft of the chisel with a 5/8" socket and extension. Upon reassembly I bought a metric bolt with the 17mm head and pressed it into an old 3/8" drive 10 mm socket I had laying around. I then took it too my shop and brazed it in there permanently. Now I just put that socket on a long extension and can hold the plunger without any problems. I also reinstalled my Progressive springs too.

Too bad Kawasaki didn't use the same hex -hole method on all the fork cylinders (Ed says with envy). Sadly, they used just a round hole on some models - like my KZ650-C1 (see pics). The factory tool looks like a reamer that gets jammed into the hole. I made a tool, some folks use broomsticks successfully, and Racetech now sells a tool for the round hole. I'd love to hear the reasoning of the guy that thought that was a good idea. Ed

Attachment ForkCylinderHole.jpg not found

Yeah Ed I knew of those, but hadn't serviced any of them yet, guess I am lucky.

Yup. Those are them. PITA to stop from going round and round. Piece of dowel and a rubber mallet did the job, tho I wonder about having a skinny 3/8 socket welded on there as you mentioned earlier... I guess even Ma Kaw didn't do everything quite right every time.

Hey Jonny, Ive been lurking your thread. I have a 79 KZ650 that I too am refreshing/bringing back to life. Anyway, I have a spare set of forks that I have robbed some parts off of. If you want take a pic of the part you need I will gladly send it to you for the cost of shipping.

Let me know,
Scott

Hi Scott.

Thanks for the offer. My camera is being a pain and the batteries are recharging at this very moment, so a photo will come later. It is the inner fork tube, or slider/stanchion. Take your pick. In any event, it's the tube that the shock lower end rides up and down, and is clamped into the triple trees up top.



This is a snap from the Kawasaki parts list. (Part no #24.)

Now, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, in any way, but it has to come from a C model bike. You would think that there would be reasonably similar parts on all the different bikes from the same or similar years, but not the case. It is the same part from 77 to 79, but different from the B and D models. I would take it boot and all if you don't them as spare parts for your build.

ps - Glad to hear there are people lurking at least a little. I am hoping that this might help out others doing the same kind of work down the road.

Cheers!
Jon

Doh! - Sorry for the double image. Seems when I screenshot it take an image of BOTH of my monitors, not just the one I am using. Of course. I will see about getting a proper image when I have batteries again....

Trying again:



Should make it a little more clear.

Okay now, that is

A: just bragging
B; very helpful, thanks.

Care to inform us how to get the nice, full size image?

ok, so the chrome part that was pitted that you posted pics of before correct? I am not SURE of which model these forks are off of. But I'd be happy to measure something or take pics etc. if there is something that identifies them as correct (or not).

By VIN my KZ650 is an F1, but I am finding several other model parts on it, like a 16" rear wheel, and it had a single front caliper (which I've sucessfully converted to dual disc now) and a rear disc which I dont think is correct but am glad it has.

Jonny wrote: Okay now, that is

A: just bragging
B; very helpful, thanks.

Care to inform us how to get the nice, full size image?

I sorta cheated. :laugh: I brought the diagram up so large on my monitor that only about the top 2/3 of it showed; I used Screen Shot to grab the top half, then I slid the diagram up so I could see the bottom 2/3 and grabbed the bottom half. Then I used Paint to graft the 2 halves together. It sounds more complicated than is really is. Ed

NIce Trick Ed, I will have to remember that one.

Dumont: I sent an email to include some photos without wasting too much space on KZR.

Cheers!