I purchased this 1977 KZ650B not running about a year ago never owning a motorcycle or repairing/rebuilding a motorcycle. The previous owner said the electrical melted down in 2005 and it had been sitting ever since. I've done car repair before, and my mind thinks mechanically and I thought to myself "how hard could this be?"
My son and I tried to start the motor when we first got it but ran into a lot of electrical problems. It was then as I was looking at the frame I realized that I wanted to sandblast and powdercoat it. So I tore it down to the frame, got it blasted and powder coated, and have been putting it back together ever since. I've done a lot (listed below), but I had a win this morning. I've been trying so hard to get this motor started. When I finally got the dyna-s ignition a couple months ago I installed it and then tried to get the motor started with the bare minimum to no avail. No spark, and I couldn't static time it either.
So I took a 2 month break on doing much with the bike. Then one day I decided to just start working on the wiring and the handlebar controls. Once I started seeing the wiring come together and the m.unit working properly I decided to tackle the ignition system again. Turns out I had wired the coils wrong. Once those were wired properly I could time the ignition, and this morning I fired her up on the third kick! Here's a link to the video (It's a public facebook video so you should be able to see it even if you don't have facebook).
www.facebook.com/1356185211/videos/902734827794502/
It feels so good to hear that thing fire up.
What I've done so far:
Rebuilt the forks
In process of rewiring the whole bike (motogadget m.unit blue)
New ignition coils
Installed Dyna-S ignition
New handlebars and handlebar controls
New mirrors
Designed and fabricated my own tail tidy/fender eliminator
New brake light
Rebuilt the carbs (still have a leak somewhere you can see in video)
New air box hoses
Cut the front fender a little smaller
New regulator/rectifier
New field coil
New headlight mount
Lots of cleaning
New handlebar grips
Still need to do:
Rebuild front brake
New seat
Finish electrical wiring
Brake lines
Throttle cables
Clutch Cable
Rebuild starter clutch (at some point. Kick is working fine)
Finish de-rusting the gas tank
And probably a few more things I can't think of right now.
I have a bunch of pictures of the process so if anyone wants to see any of them, I can definitely share them here!