My 20-year owned KZ650

It looks like he said the tailight is from a ZX11. Very good Looking bike.

She looks nice and could run circles around lesser bikes. That taillight looks like it was built for it. She is well cared for and it shows.

Correct! The taillight is off a zx-11, just flipped upside down and mounted. Not sure about the brakes. It had the dual discs when i got it. Yeah, I got lucky. It's been just about a perfect platform. This winter will be spent adding a gravity petcock and possibly some sort of air box to cut down on the turbulence induced imbalance at high speed or when windy.

tseohs wrote: Correct! The taillight is off a zx-11, just flipped upside down and mounted. Not sure about the brakes. It had the dual discs when i got it. Yeah, I got lucky. It's been just about a perfect platform. This winter will be spent adding a gravity petcock and possibly some sort of air box to cut down on the turbulence induced imbalance at high speed or when windy.

Amazing looking bike. Tell me more about how you mounted the tail light and what year ZX-11 its from. . I want to keep my stock signals just as you have, eliminating only the rear chrome fender. Here is a pic of my bike. Looking foward to hearing from you on the tail light info.

Hi,

Here's how I mounted the taillight. Don't flame me. I did this 10 years ago and it is still well attached and does not rattle.

As you can see, the zx-11 light fills out the tail section nicely. On each side of the lens, there are factory tabs. I drilled each tab and then inserted some long machine screws. They're the outside screws in photo. The same screws go through the rear mounting tabs of the tail. There's a regular nut in the center on one side of the mount and a nylock nut the other side of each mount on the end of each screw. I used the center nuts to position the light evenly on each side then snugged the nylocks onto the other side of the mounts. I then glued the factory tab on the bottom of the light to the underside of the tail (remeber it is mounted upside down). You can see the reflection of the tab int he photo. It's still holding strong.

The other photo is a kz twin tail that I'm using the same light but the mounting will be a bit different. That's going ona cb550.

Hey fine folks,

A few updates to share. I was lucky enough to score this tank and body kit from a member on here a few years ago. I was looking for a color change and these were in nicer condition than my previous set. The colors are kind of seafoam and classic white with a green pinstripe.

The new body kit gave me the opportunity to "tuck" the rear taillight up and towards the front. Also swept the license plate bracket back a few degrees.

Other minor cosmetic changes include a smaller front fender which is from a kz550 I think. The mounting holes had to be slotted a bit to achieve the proper fit but it looks much better than my old bent and chopped original.



I had been wanting to switch out the progressive shocks. They were a bit too tall and stiff pushing you forward while riding and especially over bumps. I picked up these cheap shocks which are shorter and softer and working well for now.




Finally switched to gravity fuel delivery. The original petcock was leaking again and I suspected it wasn't flowing well. After the install, I noticed quicker throttle response at about 3/4 throttle and above. Not sure if this makes sense mechanically but...

Anyway, best to you all and always like seeing what you are working on.

"The colors are kind of seafoam "

Strat player ? Nice bike, just bought one {1981 Z650} for my son......

Very nice. When you get ready for new shocks, you might take a look at Hagon and Ikon.

I have Hagon shocks on my 1977 KZ650 and after 13 years and 18,000+ miles they still work and look great. Ed

Hi guys,

Quick story I forgot about.

As I said, I've had this bike for over 20 years now and have rebuilt the carbs 3 or 4 times. Each time, I only did a mechanical synch and it ran really really well. Started easily, was well behaved in traffic, and could scream when you wanted it to.

Finally bought a vintage vacuum carb synch system from a buddy. Turns out 2 carbs were synched at 10 and the other 2 were off by 20-50%!!!!!

First ride after the vacuum synch, it started easier. Next thing I noticed was the "buzz" was much lower. I mean there was less vibration at idle, while revving, and definitely at speed. Everything just got wayy smoother. I had heard that synchronizing reduced this"buzz" but my bike ran so well I thought it was pretty close. Or at least closer.

On the next long ride with my Triumph buddy, who always rides behind me, he randomly mentioned that my bike had much less of a fuel smell coming from it. I asked if he meant that it used to smell of fuel under hard acceleration and he said no. He said it just plain smelled more like raw fuel before but much less now. I have to believe this is a result of the freshly synched carbs.

Take care everybody.

That is a great bike. I have had my 650 for almost 20 years and my 1000 for 31.

No, not a strat player. I wish.

I did have a Ford ranger from the 90s and the factory color was called 'seafoam'.