first bike ever, 77 kz650

violentvintagecycles wrote:

Southside76, you HAVE to get a new battery. Your doing good with cleaning the tank, but while your doing that take the petcock apart, clean the screens etc and make sure it flows.
If you dont want to take the carbs apart right away, at the bottom of each carb is a drain screw. Crack each one open and see if any gas comes out of it. If NO gas comes out of ANY carb you might be lucky and the previous owner drained the carbs before letting it sit. If gas comes out of any but not all your going to have to take the carbs off. If gas comes out of ALL of them, you might be able to get it started. Keep an eye on how that gas looks too, if its brown, carbs are gonna have to come off for cleaning anyway. If each carb has some gas coming out, close the drains, open the petcock and start cranking.
By the way, you said no air filter at all? Does it have an airbox or has it been removed. Im thinking if you do get it to start its only going to run while its choked.

yeah the airbox was the only thing missing, i didnt want the stock one anyways. thanks for the tips, plan on getting a battery and giving it a go this week.

If not already done, before attempting to crank, would drain float bowls. So as to eliminate any old stale fuel residue still inside the floatbowls from being drawn further into the carb internal passages.

In other words, would assure the initial cranking effort is with fresh gas in the floatbowls and not with old stale gas. So as not to introduce additional crud deeper into the carbs.

Good Luck!

Oops -- See that violentvintagecycles has already well covered this aspect. :blush:
Oh well, it's important, so ditto to what vvc recommended.