Wanted a crotch rocket and ended up with this...

I thought the "sissy bars" were the round extensions that protect the legs from side impacts.

Like NitroM3, I could not wrap my head around a sissy bar protecting knees, but it makes sense in relation to the crash bars. Which I will take off as well at some point, but they don't look as offensive to me as the sissy bar.

A sissy bar is usually some sort of back rest for the passenger. You can see it see in the first set of pics.
 
Like NitroM3, I could not wrap my head around a sissy bar protecting knees, but it makes sense in relation to the crash bars. Which I will take off as well at some point, but they don't look as offensive to me as the sissy bar.

A sissy bar is usually some sort of back rest for the passenger. You can see it see in the first set of pics.
KrisZ, a suggestion to strongly consider. That bike is heavy we know this because of the time period it was made, if you drop it you could damage the engine. That would be sad because it is a rare find in such great condition. So consider removing the engine guard and getting it powder-coated satin black. It will almost blend in with the scene and not be so chrome offensive looking. This way you will still have a great looking bike and the engine will be protected!

Oh I love your signature..... we are looking at homes now in the Flower Mond area currenting live in CA.
 
KrisZ, a suggestion to strongly consider. That bike is heavy we know this because of the time period it was made, if you drop it you could damage the engine. That would be sad because it is a rare find in such great condition. So consider removing the engine guard and getting it powder-coated satin black. It will almost blend in with the scene and not be so chrome offensive looking. This way you will still have a great looking bike and the engine will be protected!

Oh I love your signature..... we are looking at homes now in the Flower Mond area currenting live in CA.
Please stop it! You're making too much sense and now my practical side is kicking in :)
You are absolutely right, these things are useful and powder coating them to match the frame is a great idea.

Now, if I could find something like pictured below, that would be ideal.

1977 Kawasaki KZ650 pipes.JPG
 
Please stop it! You're making too much sense and now my practical side is kicking in :)
You are absolutely right, these things are useful and powder coating them to match the frame is a great idea.

Now, if I could find something like pictured below, that would be ideal.

View attachment 71351
What ever you decide just PLEASE DONT mount lights or horns on the bar ..... :ROFLMAO:
 
... a 1977 Kawasaki KZ650

Pretty much all original as far as I can tell, 7600 miles and best of all no cafe racer mods. Once the sissy bar is off it will look just the way I like it.

View attachment 71218View attachment 71219
If that was a 750 I'd say "whats this bikes vin?"..lol
My 750 was stolen, looked just like it back in early 80's. Never recovered it even though they caught the guy 3 yrs later they never found it. They only gave him 1yr probation and supposed to pay restitution.
My insurance paid me off for it, with $100 deductible.
I know they caught him cause courts sent me a check for $150 dollars (his first restitution payment) instead of to my insurance corp. I cashed that sucker, wth?..lol About 6mo later I called courts to see if he'd been paying it off and they said "no" just that $150. Said he has till end of probation time to pay it, just call us back if he don't by then. I called back at the date she gave me to check again. She said he never paid anymore than that $150 then she said he was released off probation early and nothing can be done to make him pay it now? Case is closed!!
I told her I should start stealing vehicles in our county too cause it certainly pays very well. "Hopefully I don't steal your car lady" and I hung up...lol Last I ever heard of it, never saw my bike again but hey I made $300 off the entire deal at least. Great little city cruisers and yours looks fantastic, just beware they are very easy to hotwire so keep its steering locked, being young/dumb I didn't do that real often. Peace!
 
I Great little city cruisers and yours looks fantastic, just beware they are very easy to hotwire so keep its steering locked, being young/dumb I didn't do that real often. Peace!
Those old steering locks slow down a veteran bike thief but it is only a few second annoyance to get around . A more modern Kryptonite bar one of the better anti theft but still not fool proof will usually cause a would be bike thief to reconsider and look for another bike.

 
Nice fleet! (y)
I'm not partial to any style either, but sports bike in particular seem to be overpriced in my area at the moment.
I think time has caught up with me. I prefer the Magna over the GSXR. Although my Magna's engine is by no means stock nor the suspension and can and does stomp on most sport bikes in its engine class, it is just more comfortable to just do a easy mountain cruise. The GSXR is uncomfortable and after about 30 minutes I am bored and my back hurts. :cry: I don't hit triple digits anymore because I don't think I will heal as well if I go down. The last time was @130mph and end up sliding under a truck that pulled right in front of me. I suppose you could say it was my fault. I was challenged to see how fast I could make it from Santa Cruz to Monterey and back. Stupid times. I was hitting speeds over 145 constant on Hwy 1 LOL I got to know what cleaning road rash feel like when they scape the wound with a nylon brush and only a little nitrous to take the edge off the pain. Oh and get this... I was wearing my leather racing jacket gloves and helmet but tennis shoes and levi's'. When I got to the hospital the attending said hey bud your fly is down, but nope what I had done was slid and the tarmac scraped the front zipper flap and zipper right of my pants I must have roll on my back before it went any farther or I might have lost a body part (lol) :oops:

I would rather have a nice old bike like yours now!
 
I love those old air cooled 4-cylinder street bikes. The Honda 550-four was always my favorite but this Kawi is very, very nice. Good buy! (y)
 
the crash bars. Which I will take off as well at some point, but they don't look as offensive to me as the sissy bar.
Engine crash bars make the difference between getting up, cursing your luck and carrying on with your journey, or sitting forlornly waiting for a tow truck, then hunting for nearly unobtainable / very expensive end cases (depending on bike, of course).
All my bikes have crash bars.
 
So I have a bit of an update or rather findings. Even though this motorcycle is in a very good overall shape, it appears that whomever worked on this bike was not, shall we say, detail oriented.

During cold starts it would run an three cylinders that would seem to clear up after fully warmed up. After removing the carbs I found the clamp, holding the carb for the cylinder that wasn’t firing correctly to be not exactly round. That was probably the source of a vacuum leak and subsequent poor running of that cylinder.
E57B3A2B-92B2-49CD-A8C2-BB88FD3197E1.jpeg





I also noticed that the throttle had less twist than I’m normally used to and the bike felt quite underpowered. Well, the bolt securing the carb lineage rod to the throttle mechanism was not original and was hitting the body, preventing full open throttle.

E037DB00-7AEE-40BD-AC80-2B172B28D661.jpeg


This is the max throttle opening I could do.
E5FD6155-60B3-4BC8-91BD-E787ED077E08.jpeg




Then there were carbs. While I didn’t find any clogged jets, it was nasty inside and the float heights were all over the place. The gaskets and orings were also hard and looked very old. I mean, I’m not exactly “by the book” kind of guy myself, but why not take few extra minutes to clean everything while already in there?

B5092CD8-F5C6-49D2-824B-64A5002BAB83.jpeg



Anyway, I cleaned the carbs, gave them new gaskets and orings and set the float heights, however my model doesn’t specify it by the float height but rather you have to measure fuel level with a tube, so I guesstimated the height and will have to do it properly.
Same goes for sync, I only did a mechanical sync as a don’t have a set of vacuum gauges yet.

Nevertheless, even with my by the ear tuning, it runs much smoother now and can idle smoothly at the specified 1k rpm, where before I had to keep it around 1.5k rpm.
 
I also noticed that the throttle had less twist than I’m normally used to and the bike felt quite underpowered. Well, the bolt securing the carb lineage rod to the throttle mechanism was not original and was hitting the body, preventing full open throttle.

View attachment 77728

This is the max throttle opening I could do.
View attachment 77730
Home made speed governor. 😄
 
Back
Top