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My name is Travis. I got introduced to café bikes because of the new TV show and have wanted a project of some sort. Space and money dictated a bike would be the best option...so here is my second purchace, first attempt. I found a decent running kz650 with lots of electrical gremlins.
Welcome... Get some pics on ;D There are several kz650 guys on here. Plenty of knowledge to soak up... Use the search function and find a couple build threads and subscribe to them if you want updates on current projects... Mine is listed below
Welcome! And I agree with Mark, lets see what kinda shape this pony is in!
And welcome to the KZ club, its a helluva bike. Im currently doing a frame up cafe/streetfighter/Idunno build on my '78 KZ650. When I first brought her home, to say it had electrical gremlins was an understatement. Lots of hours spent with a multimeter If you dont have a stock wiring diagram yet, you'll want to start with that, found here: http://diagrams.kz650.info/wiring/images/
Thanks for the replies!! I'm sure I'll be needing some help along the way. So second attempt at pictures...unfortunately I forgot to get pics of when I got it, but here it is on the day i finally got to start tearing it down. My plan is just a basic cafe bike since this is my first time doing anything like this. From what i've read the KZ is a pretty sweet bike from its time so i just want to change its looks. Maybe i'll rebuild it again later...
I've actually owned this bike for almost a year but didn't get started on it until recently. Before i got started working on it a buddy started building a shop to work on cars and after i started helping on it he said i could work on it there when the shop was usable. So i put the project on hold...I had no idea I'd have so much fun working on this. So far I've stripped pretty much all the stuff i don't want on the bike off. When i got it there was a chunk of trailer wiring behind the headlight, all the handlebar controls were cut then spliced with blue butt connectors, YUCK. The headlight would sometimes work, one blinker didn't blink and the other did nothing. I'm replacing the butt connectors with a terminal connector and giving the wiring a once over. One of the side covers blew off and got ran over so that kinda made my decision to ditch them. So I've detabbed the frame, put on some Uni pods and a drag bar. The nobby tires are leaving, in case there was any doubt!!
Pics of drag bar and pod filters. I almost forgot the jets were so clogged the bike would only run on full choke. So I cleaned up the carbs and put in new jets, couldn't see through the slow jets. Bike runs sooo much smoother. Then I tore into the wiring so I couldn't start it and try to ride it.
Not much time to work on the bike, but I did get the terminals on the wires for the handlebar controls. I'll put the connectors on when I know the rest of the bars are done.
Well I did a horrible job keeping up with this build! I'm going to try to run through it. Now that it's basically done. My old phone had issues posting pics, see how this one does
This looks like the next thing I tackled according to my gallery. I made a cardboard back stop to get an idea of what it would look like. Then cut a chunk of tail off and welded a new hoop in.
Glad I came across your build thread. I'll definitely be following. I just picked up a '78 KZ650B which I'll be building into a scrambler/tracker soon enough.
Mine has wiring issues as well, I'm thinking of just pulling the harness and dishing out a bit extra for a Spark moto unit.
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