Resurrecting a Kawasaki KZ650 – Part 3

Turns out that even with backup, I’ve barely been making any progress on the KZ650 project that I’ve been hoping to resurrect. So now I’m being a good capitalist and just throwing money at the problem. But I’m finally getting results!

It’s been so long since the last update that there’s no reasonable way that you’d remember the last installments. With that in mind, you may want to rewind a bit:
Part 1
Part 2

So let’s fast forward to…now!

Since the last update, we’ve determined that the gas tank was unsalvageable as there was way too much rust on the inside. I thought about hacking it up to create some sort of wall art for my buddy, but the smell of bad gas is so much that it had to be disposed of. So the bike sat tankless for a while in a separate hangar we use for storage. But I was able to convince one of our mechanics to assist me with this bike, and he’s been tackling the project a couple of hours at a time after work.

After almost twenty years of sitting, there were a few things that needed attention. I was a bit worried about what we’d find under this “cover” of the master cylinder…

…but it thankfully didn’t look horrible from the exterior. Still, it clearly would need a rebuild kit, which was confirmed with a quick look inside the reservoir.

It’s always a treat to get NOS parts!

So now it fires up, and after tires/tubes/carb clean/a whole bunch of new parts, I think I’m just a week or two away from taking it on its first voyage in years (and then I’m sure it’ll need some more carb tuning)! My hope is to knock out a couple of shakedown runs and then surprise my buddy (the previous owner) with it so he can enjoy a nostalgic ride on it. After that, I’m not sure what’ll happen. I was planning on keeping this bike a long time but my new-to-me BMW R100CS Last Edition has my “classic with carbs” craving satisfied for the moment. I guess we’ll see how it goes…

As of February 28th, 2022, I have spent the following: