wireman wrote:

greasegun with flexible hose.you shouldnt have to grease it more than once a year.

Ditto. YMMV, but the fitting on mine is dead center top of the swingarm and faces toward the right side of the bike. I have the stock battery box in mine and find it makes things mucho easier if I loosen the bolts holding the battery box down, then lift the box out of the way with a couple of paint stirring sticks taped together. Gives a much better angle to the head of the fitting, prevents that blob of icky spillage from growing on top of your swingarm...

Hello,

I've been a member for awhile now, but have never posted any pics of my bike, so I'm introducing it. My mac computer doesn't like the new KZ site nearly as much as I do, so let's hope this works.

BTW - thanks everyone for all the help. I've gleaned alot of ideas of these forums. There are some real KZ geniuses lurking on here.

OK, here sort of a rundown on my bike: Bought it bone stock three years ago with 23,000 miles and a decent red paint job. It had no problems and was a great bike. Then I tore it down and had the frame painted PPG Viper Metallic Silver (along with the stripe on the tank). I am really pleased with the result. A friend of my owns a body shop and he did a fantastic job. I changed the wheels from mags to wires because I wanted that look. Lowered the headlight and gauges about 3 inches for a sleeker look. Put on drag bars. KZ750 exhaust.

The seat I made myself using the original foam and carving with a sharp knife (there are good threads in the archives on this). The vinyl is typical upholstery vinyl and after spending a day in front of the sewing machine that's what I ended up with.

The marker lights are a Lockhart Philips aluminum series that's been discontinued (ebay).

It's a 140 back tire and yes it fits (probably has alot to do with the specific tire and the fact I have it pretty far back in the swing arm.).

Pods and jetted exactly like Baldy110 and it works great (high altitude here in Oregon??)

If you have questions let me know. I finally took it for it's maiden voyage the other day and it was a blast. OK, enough rambling. Here's the pics.

on what type of bike? lucky for you the kz 900 & 1000 where drag favorites and you can still get drag parts like offset sprockets with carrier bearings. i know there is a place in mn. that makes swing arms and rear frame units to run wider drag tires.

The problem:

I'm not hooking up well enough with the stockish rear. that's not too surprizing. This means I need something a bit wider. This leads me to consider more of an auto type tire, and a wider rim.

By searching the archives, I've found a few interesting tidbits...

The GS1100 swingarm needs little in the way of modifications and will get me a slick of about 6.5".

Now, I'm actually considering something about 9". This gets me squarely into the realm of a jackshaft application. Searching the archives, I found the 'Busa. While I have no desire to do anyting like that, I find it interesting.

Do any of you have experiance with jackshaft swingarms, or any other advice?

thanks for all the respons, i went to a deal to ask some questions and well, the guy must work off comissions. we spent 2 min talking about my bike and 10 were spent by him trying to sell a new 1. so, anyways i put the rear wheel and swing arm on, there were 2 spacers thet didnt show up in my clymer but i figured the larger went to the chain side?! I also put the front forks and triples on, was a pain with no center stand and no help,does it make a diffrence how far down the tree slides down or just go with the handle bar clearance? So today im taking the wireing harnes out of the head light (so many plugs and clips and conectors and blah blah) a great tip to draw the line seprat i will use that alot im sure,i also noticed that the start botton on the hand control is melted and kinda burnt looking...any thoughts on bypassing that like adding a switch straight to the starter maybe?? wow alot to write more to do, thanks for your help guys and gals:cheer:

I'm in a similar position. I bought a none running 1977 KZ650-B1 about 3 weeks ago from my neighbour who had bought it from a buddy but had no time to work on it this summer. $250 later my two boys helped me roll it across the street and into my tool shed/work shop. I got the original owner's Clymer manual with all his oil changes, compression tests, etc.

It seems to be a question of time and money. If you have the time you can save a lot of money. If you have a lot of money your probably can't find the time. Right now I have the time. The bike seems to have been taken care of mechanically but I had to clear out four electrical problems:
1) Broken and ground-shorted kill switch. Glued, drilled and filed my way out.
2) Ground-shorted start switch. Filed, modified and heat-shrinked my way out.
3) And the toughest to troubleshoot for me... an internally ground-shorted high and low beam in the H4 bulb. Changed the bulb.
4) Right side coil with no spark out of one wire. Easy to find and $20 to replace at a rural bike scrap yard.
5) Invisible ground-short in the right handle bar cable. Never located the offending short but lots of heat-shrink tubing did the job.

By the way, I found the original wires and connections to be in remarkably good condition so I keep them all. If they are pliable, and not cracked then you may want to do the same. You have already found the coloured wire diagram at the back of your Clymer manual. Give it a try. Hint… try drawing the part you don’t understand on a blank piece of paper. It will get your focused and moving. Even it you don’t finish it your will understand it much better and will probably answer some of your own questions. Also, be prepared for errors in the diagram. If it doesn’t make sense you could be right. I was.

Also had one carburetor problem (so far):
1) The fuel rail between carburetors 1 and 2 had two bad O rings. Replaced with two generic ring from Canadian Tire. They were a tight fit but no more leak/gush of gas.

Tried to kick start the bike and it roared into life. I mean roar. Seems the KZ650's have the un-nerving characteristic of idling at 4K rpm plus on choke. This happened at about 2 AM so I had to use the kill switch fast to keep up good relations with my neighbours. Only a lot of internet surfing informed me that I probably don't have a problem here. If anyone out here has a solution for this me and my neighbours would really appreciate it.

Right now I'm looking for some parts. See classified section of Point Cover and Rear Grab Handles. I could use new exhausts because of all the welding on the existing set and the big crack in the middle. A KZ'er from Dallas has a set and if a local boy doesn’t swing by to pick them up I'll give it a try. It should be interesting finding a value for these things at Customs Canada.

So from me you'll hear 'Fix it yourself'. But I am really enjoying the challenge, I have the space, I have an electronics background, I could make the time and frankly I am reliving my teenage years when I bought and rebuilt a then 27 year old Harley Davidson WLA-45 army bike in my dad's unused horse stable up in the Laurentian mountains.

Right now I'm doing the mechanical inspection, frame paint touch-up and soon/finally the final assembly.

Best of success with yours! "Success is for people who work, luck is for those who don't". Well that's what I preach to my boys... and they pretend to listen.

Lets hear what you decided and where you’re at.

Well as I have the same bike, and you say you want ot lengthen and lower it,your gona have to change the swing arm out to something diff.. and that will change the length of your shocks too. Depending on whether you go longer or shorter.. you'll also have to change other things lie chain length and so forth..

this is my 82 j1000 my brother n i have been playin with. its got 05 forks,05 rear shock. the 05 rearset n pass pegs are on there way. 03-04 swingarm n rims. my brother is workin on the 636 tailight into the old fairing.its off to the powder coater as soon as we fit the rearsets n finish smoothin out the frame. let me know what you guys think

jamestheron wrote:

yeah the jammer dose nothing for my bike i found a police on ebay for 50.00 and 50.00 shipped not good feedback though so id rather be safe then sorry...lucky for you i didn't win that vetter box but i do like the look of your bike with just the white mount i'm going to go ahead and do that for now.when i got this bike it was trashed and and few dollars latter shes looking like a new penny i think is good for my first bike just not sure if it was a good choice to learn on but hey better then a 1000 supper bike i was going to buy for 13,000 and learn on

Well, to combine a couple of your statements with your updated sig; you're going to have a hard time finding an OEM fairing for a 1979 C2 for the simple reason that they *didn't make them*. You're gonna have to either revert to the framed windshield, or transplant a '82 P1 fairing. Myself, I'm for keeping a '79 all '79, but there's no Kaw Cops that'll bust you if you decide otherwise.

Well, they made more than 2 Vetter boxes. another will show up. I think it was one of the Mods - NONB - that wrote to someone else, "just keep looking - just about the time you give up, 2 come out of the woodpile," or something to that effect. I went through a couple of phases before lucking into mine.

Another box that would work spiffy - I've seen a couple on KZPs - is the Tour Pak (tm) from late '80s early '90s Harley dressers. Nice piece - you might want to try looking on Ebay for those as well.

Well, admittedly, there's better bikes to learn on, but it isn't a sure-fire death sentence either. Just go easy. It ain't a streetfighter, it ain't as fast as the average Joe Six-Pack thinks, and if you like to grind floorboard chasing Haybasas, you're a lock for a Darwin Award. Get good tires, swingarm bushings and neck bearings - you-ll need 'em. Make sure the brakes work. Don't be a stoplight squirrel - you'll lose more than you win. There's nothing to prove, except that you've kept the shiny side up.

There's a thousand tricks to riding a motorcycle - if you live long enough, you'll see 999 of 'em.

longshorecoma wrote:

I have a good idea asto lower the back. but the front is the question. a has anybody ever seen a lowaed ltd 1000 with out an extended swing arm?

Sure. Quickest, safest route to a lowered tail I've seen is a set of HD Sportster "Hugger 883" (chick bike) shocks.

Never seen a set of struts - or what they do - that I cared for...