Fixing up the '83 KZ550 Spectre

I've posted once or twice on this bike and decided to finally just working to fix it all at once. After dailying it for 5 months I started to get annoyed with the small and/or dangerous stuff. Oil spots everywhere, all the rear lights deciding not to work at times, front brake does almost nothing, etc.

I've missed a few pics but may as well get started somewhere.

Here's a pic of when I got it last year. Not in the worst shape physically, all the trim pieces are there, seat isn't torn, no dents or scratches. Overall could be a lot worse


And the last pic before stuff started coming off. Some of the cosmetic things are easy to find here, such as that side panel not being secure due to broken holding tabs, faded handlebar controls, etc.


So into the garage it goes and off comes the valve cover. Except for the gasket (surprise) it doesn't look too bad. Despite 28,000 miles and who knows how many owners, there's no sludge or buildup or anything. Very slight pitting on a couple cam lobes but it's worse in the pic than it is running a finger nail over it.


While we've got the cover off, let's go ahead and check the valves. A few are right on the edge of being "within spec" so I'll need to get some shims to bring them closer than 0.02 of the far end of the spectrum.


Wow, I hit a too many links error.

Hm. I wonder why I have electrical problems?


Time to start removing the head. Oh what a mess you end up with.


The jetting on this thing is whack so I know it's running too rich. The cylinder walls are absolutely fine though. No scoring or pitting on any of the cylinders. Good start!


Sooty, but that's expected with the whack jetting.


Up next: finding parts and pulling the engine out of the frame.

The valve clearances you measured are a good sign. If most of them were at or below the minimum, that would suggest that the p.o.s had not been doing the maintenance. Assuming the factory spec is 0.10 - 0.20, then the sweet spot is 0.15 - 0.20. Looks likevall but three are there. Once you measure the shims that are in the engine, you may find that by swapping a few around, you can get them all within tolerance.

I'm waiting on gaskets being shipped via UPS SurePost (more like SlowPost) so may as well work on wiring stuff until next weekend when they might arrive.

First thing to start with was the tail light\rear turn signals. I've had issues with this setup forever. Main problem was the 6 pin connector was heavily corroded and didn't make a good contact for shit. Constantly had to stop and wiggle it around to make the rear lights start working again. The other issue is I wasn't getting 12V back to the tail light, but the brake light worked fine. Someone else had played around with this before as evident by some yellow electrical tape slapped on.



The hardest part of this all was fixing that tail light. Somewhere along the main harness from the connector behind the headlight to the tail light connector the red wire got broken. Where at? No idea, but I didn't get continuity through it. Pulling that out and running a new wire into the harness fixed that issue. 

Along with that, I went ahead and replaced the 6 pin connector with a pair of 2 pin connectors. There's one connection for left turn, right turn, tail and stop then the ground is switched from a dedicated connection to chassis grounding. Simplified the wiring a bit and now works absolutely fine.



After this got fixed I went ahead and tackled cleaning up the left handlebar controls. The turn signal switches were super touchy and the hazard light switch only worked for a few seconds whenever it rained. A fair bit of disassembly and contact cleaner later and I now have working turn signals and hazard lights. Never had the hazards working before so it's a nice addition. The next thing I need to tackle there is the self canceling turn signal solenoid\control box to see what isn't working there.

Next thing to be tacked while waiting for UPS SlowPost is the fusebox. I'd blown a fuse before after pinching a wire for my cigarette lighter box and finding new glass fuses wasn't the most favorable experience. Sure, I could get them at a parts store but finding them at Walmart or a gas station wasn't so easy. Replacing the box with one that takes regular blade fuses was something I'd planned on doing for a while.

So here's where it's going to be mounted. It's a little lower than the factory position but I didn't feel like rerouting the main wiring harness to make this mount up all the way. Need to make up a spacer for the bottom and a brace for the top and it'll be good to go. It clears the side cover no problem right here and the wires aren't dangling out in the breeze.



On the back side everything is hooked up with right angle connectors. This isn't the best solution for weatherproofing but this isn't out in the open either. Should work alright. If I were to do this again I'd find a different fuse block that would let me do entirely internal cable routing like the factory one.



Of course, no fuse box is complete without labels for what does what. I went ahead and kept the factory positioning for the fuses, no reason to undo what worked fine. 



And of course, we need some values too.