'83 KZ440-D5 newbie advice

Picked up a 440 LTD a couple months ago. As far as I can tell it's in about 7/10 shape. I have some ideas about how to get it more ride ready, but wanted to run it by here, since I'm a super-newb.

It runs, but takes some time to warm-up before it will idle. I'm thinking the first solution in line to fix this would be cleaning the carbs. There is oil around the cylinders, but haven't seen a lot of other evidence of leaks. Then again I have untrained eyes. The treads appear fine, but I couldn't find a date code on the tires (which doesn't mean it's not there), but they're at least 2 years old. The wiring is a mess, but all of the controls and lights work. Headlight is fine, but I plan on replacing with a halogen.

Being the noob that I am, I layed it down on the left side going about 15mph. Signals and mirrors were easily bent back into place. The left metal footrest spun around but I was able to move and tighten it. The speedometer cable was broken. The handlebar bent in, and I think the consensus is that I should replace them, and not try to bend them back - which is fine because the stock ape hangers were a little too close together for comfort anyway.

The big thing though is the front assembly. I can't really tell what's off, but you can see from the picture the wheel is pulling a hard right. From what I gather either A- the fork assembly is misaligned, B- one or both of the triple trees are bent, or C- the forks are bent (ouch). The wheel appears to spin fine and probably isn't bent.

I'm thinking I'll take it to the local Powersports Service, and have them do a tune-up and perhaps replace at least the front tire. I'm wondering about how much y'all think that would cost, and I'm guessing that they should be able to fix the front alignment when they switch tires.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

Welcome aboard!

Yes, the bars should be replaced rather than straightened. Metal fatigue weakens the bent area and that's not something you want.

Since your accident was at a rather low speed, I doubt the forks are bent. If you loosen the lower triple clamp pinch bolts, you should be able to nudge the front wheel back into alignment pretty easily. After you loosen the bolts, stand facing the headlight and put the front wheel between your knees to give you some leverage.

I would recommend replacing both tires. They are your only contact with the road and it doesn't make sense to risk another accident because you're riding on tires of unknown age and provenance. You could save a few bucks by taking just the wheels to your local shop, but you might not be able to do that (or feel comfortable doing that) so you might be better off taking the whole bike to the shop.

Bikes of that era tend to be cold-blooded. Taking a while to warm up probably isn't a problem, unless one cylinder is much hotter than the other.

You should also pick up a shop manual. A good one, not Haynes. You can use it for the torque specs for the pinch bolts and for replacing the bars.

Good luck!

Handlebars. BMW Med Tall Street bars >>> if you want to maintain the upright Ltd riding position & not have to change control cables n stuff.

Lower/wider bars >>> from highest to lowest rider position >>> Emgo Daytonas, European bars, Superbike bars or Drag bars.

I installed Emgo euro bars from Z1Enterprises.com, but superbike bars probably would be better for extended high speed riding. Previously, I had Flanders bmw med tall str bars, but the riding position was too upright for long stretches of open highway. pretty common around here. They were great around town & at speeds below 60mph, though.

1981 KZ650-CSR w Emgo euro bars & 750E/1000J long stem mirrors. short stem Ltd-type mirrors are almost useless w lower bars.

The tire date code is usually in a small oval. week first, then year. for example this tire was manufactured in the 35th week of 2007. if tires are over 5-7 years old its best to replace them.

Thanks for the replies! I'll go ahead and replace both tires before I do any highway riding. Thanks for showing me the date code. Usually I'd be smart enough to look up something like that, but I was assuming it'd look like a food expiration date. I haven't had a chance to check those dates or fix my alignment yet, but I'll give that a try next time I'm home.

@martin_csr thanks for the info on handlebars. I hadn't gotten around to exploring my options on those, and I wouldn't have even thunk about the mirror height until I was putting them on. I do have some questions though.

I believe the current bars are the stock LTD variant, like the ones attached that I've found on ebay. I like the height of them, but not their roundedness in the angles, or the "downwardness" of the pullback as much. I'm looking at these ones from Z1E.

Do you think my cable lengths will be fine? And it looks like there are knurled areas where the brackets would mount on the ebay pic, but I don't see them on the Z1E bars that I'm eyeing. Will this be a problem?

Compare your measurements to the new bars. It may be that whatever new bars you get, the control cables could still be too long. A little too long won't be problematic at all. It could be just an aesthetic thing. I changed out the clutch cable & upper brake line, but not the throttle cables which are too long by quite a bit, but that hasn't been a problem. just looks weird.