kz650c ressurection

I've been reading OMR's build and all the effort he's put into his bike. It made me feel guilty for letting my bike sit unused and unloved.

It also made me damn jealous that he gets to motor around on such a beautiful machine.

So anyway, my bike has been sitting for years. I got to ride her for a summer after I got her before she was parked. Such a tease.

Back then I had plans for all kinds of modifications. For now, I would be happy just to get her functional again.

So here's where the project starts... a seized engine. Assuming the pistons are fused to the cylinder wall, I have sprayed some PB Blaster into the spark plug holes. No luck yet after one night's wait. I sprayed some more and will check again tomorrow.

While waiting for the PB Blaster to do its magic, I took the rear fender off. These bikes look a zillion times better without em. You guys agree?

Agreed... looks better

Be good to her!

Cheers!

Well the PB Blaster hasn't helped loosen the pistons so my friend George and I decided to start the tear down.

She's lost her top!

The internals of the head cover looks good. The gasket is pretty brittle. I guess a symptom of age and sitting so long.

Here she is topless. So far things look to be in pretty good condition.

Close up.

Well I have a hunch which cylinder is seized. After taking my headers off I noticed one of the copper gaskets was incorrectly inserted into the exhaust port (cylinder 3) before mounting. The header was as a result not seated properly.

When I looked into the port I noticed a buildup of some sort of ash. There was about a tablespoon of the stuff sitting right at the port outlet. It looks like something out of a barbecue pit.

A pic of the ash stuff on my garage floor, any idea what this might be?

Well I managed to get my cylinder head and cylinders off. Getting the cylinders off was a pain. I had a discussion on how to get em off.

kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...ew&catid=2&id=366450

I think the culprit for the difficulty was gunk that had accumulated around the cylinder studs wouldn't allow them to slide through their holes.

The project has now officially taken over the garage. I have begun the rebuild of the carbs. Bought new gaskets and disassembled each one. I soaked all the metal bits in carb cleaner. That stuff works great, all the varnished gas came right off. Now I just need to put them back together. Fun stuff.

lookin good man!
and x2 on the fender removal. Looks way better, did it to mine too, i tucked the light under the tail piece using a few nuts and bolts, and some aluminum plate. i also shortened up the blinker tubes.

-Luke