New KZ owner in Indiana

Hey everybody!

I've been here for about a month or so but I didn't have a bike until yesterday, so i didn't have much to post about.

Yesterday, I brought home a 1978 KZ650B, unidentified 4/1 exhaust, not running, painted badly, but in pretty fair condition for the $387.50 I gave for it on ebay. It's got 18,129 miles.
After making some tool purchases today I began tinkering with it in hopes of getting it running. The guy I bought it from had only had it a month before he decided he was in over his head. When I went to pick it up he showed me that the starter would turn the motor over fine, it just wouldn't fire. First things first, I put some gas into the empty tank;). I also discovered that the vacuum line was missing from the fuel control valve to the carb. After I had those things sorted, I made sure I was getting spark. Every few times I would try to kickstart it it was backfiring so I pulled all the plugs and noticed two of them were fouled, they were also NGK9ES instead of NGK7ES plugs that my Clymers says are stock (2 ranges colder). All the Moto dealers were closed by the time I found this out, so I went to Autozone and had them cross reference some plugs that might work. I came home and installed the new plugs and put the choke on full and it started on the first kick!!!:woohoo: :woohoo: Ok, so it's only running on 2 cylinders at this point, but it is running, and that makes me happy. Enough rambling, here are a couple pics of her.

Post edited by: Voodoosoup, at: 2006/09/15 23:21

Post edited by: Voodoosoup, at: 2006/09/15 23:23

.

.

That was a good score...soon you'll be tooling all around Allen County like a maniac. I'm just west of you over in Michigan City. Good luck with your project and keep the pics coming.

Voodoosoup wrote:

.

that's cool I bought that exact bike in late 77
it was a great bike I put v/h 4in1, velocity stacks
and a slipstream sheild and rode from LA to Dallas
man that's a great bike:cheer:

I just figured out why 2 of the cylinders weren't firing! The left coil was wired to cylinders 1 and 2 and the right one was wired to 3 and 4. After swapping the plug wires on the left coil to 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 for the right coil. It fired on the first kick and the headers for all of the cylinders were getting warm!!!! tomorrow should be a good day!!

So lessons learned today......

1. You need to have gas in the tank
2. You need to have a vacuum line installed for the fuel valve
3. The plug wires need to go to the correct cylinders

I can see why the guy I got it from gave up after a month.
He really didn't know how to work on/fix anything.

Thats a cool score! . You know I really like spoked wheels...the way they look. Maybe its that I'm too lazy to want to shine them?? Oh wait..my Yamaha has them...damn.

ten6..Hello brother, IAFF local 42 KCFD

I was watching that one on Ebay myself. Looks like you got a good deal.

Dude, glad to hear you are figuring things out already..That makes the score even sweeter

pumps wrote:

\

ten6..Hello brother, IAFF local 42 KCFD

Hey Pumps, I got 7 years on so far how bout you? Stay safe out there...

I'm into year 16 so far.... here's what we do for fun though.

Post edited by: steell, at: 2007/03/18 09:14

Welcome Voodoosoup. Nice score on the 650. Many happy miles with her.

Thanks for the welcome everyone!

After getting the correct plugs in yesterday, I spent last night and part of this afternoon going through the hacked up wiring, checking and cleaning connections. There were a few wires on the ignition harness that were simply twisted together and wrapped in electrical tape! I took it out of the garage and fired it up, on about half choke it was idling slightly rough, afer some light revving and carb backfires I was able to let it warm up and turn the choke fully off. It was running sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's a new pic.