1979 KZ650 Restoration

I will try to post some pictures of my 650 project. It did not run very good when I got. First thing I did was adjust the valves, cleaned and synced the carbs and set the points. The engine now runs awesome. It is a good starting point.

The carbs were the first part restored. The insides were cleaned with carb cleaner. The outsides were glass bead blasted. After blasting a very fine wire brush was used in a circular motion to shine'em up a bit.

I have been restoring one or two parts at a time, taking little bites. The fork lower tubes were glass bead blasted and then sanded and polished in the same areas the factory did.

Welcome to KZR, Looks like a nice project. Keep the pix coming.

Mark

Nice work so far Steve.
Looking good.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I now removed the engine from the bike, no turning back now. The engine really ran good and had no leaks but it just wasn't pretty. set. I am just not sure how to refinish the engine cases, cylinder and head. I want a finish that will look original but new. I do not want to polish these parts because they weren't polsihed from the factory (not to mention the time it would take). It almost looks like these parts were painted with an aluminum colored paint, but some here on the site say they would not have been painted from the factory.
All the gaskets and seals will be replaced with a Verseh?gasket set.

Compared to some others cases, she'll clean up fairly quickly....

I got my seal and gasket kit from Z1... You can get complete engine kits, lower kits or upper kits, truly your choice....

Looking mighty fine... keep the images coming...

kzmk2, truly inspirational! I just dug my bike out of the snow 2 days ago and started a similar cleanup process. I am not looking to splitting any cases as there appear to be no engine leaks.

Can you take a pic of the adapter you used to hold your engine to your Engine Stand... looks like I have a similar stand.

Best of success,
Bill

PS
Remember to add your year, model and location to your signature to get the very best responses... and it's considered real friendly too.
Bill

Bill, here is the best photo I have of the engine fixture. It works really good, I have used it on KZ650/750 engines and a KZ1100 engine. The engine stand is a Larin from Fleet Farm.

Here is the photo.

The cases are now split and washed. Now I have to figure how to renew the look of the case. I have seen some discussions here about soda blasting, glass bead blasting, walnut shells and other types of blasting. I am going to experiment with the 3 I listed above.

I think soda blasting will be the cheapest way to go and also the fact that the residue is water soluable(washes off with warm water).

Use a filter mask if you go this route and wear gloves to protect your hands.