1982 KZ550 LTD

I've finally made enough progress to share ...

This is the 1982 KZ550 LTD that belonged to my dad 20 years ago, sold, and then I stumbled across.

It's sat for a long time; so everything is stuck, seized or dry rotted. The carbs were removed, stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. New float needles and all gaskets. Bench sync'd, float heights set. It's been tough to find time when parts finally show up, but today I got it to fire up for the first time. 

I was wildly excited; there's so much left to do, but this marks a big milestone that I've been anxiously working for. It sounds just like it did when I was 15. 

Anyways, here's a link. It smokes a lot, idled like shit, but after running and getting the cobwebs out I was able to get it to idle off choke, with no smoke. Lots of adjustments left. Carb syn gauges are on their way ..

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Yeeeehaaaaaw!!!

IT´S ALIVE !!!

Is it fair to say you are mildly happy at this point sounds good, you should be proud of yourself

I was pretty jazzed up; it runs, which answers that question.

However...it was doing a lot of intake leak stuff. So today I fired it up, battles to get it to idle, then began shooting poison everywhere.

Air leak at each of the carb holders, between the holders and the block.

Naive of me to think I wasn't taking the carbs out anytime soon....so I took them out, pull off the carb holders, and....they are shaped like u's. That'll do it!

We've opted for the "make it work" approach for now. I still don't know if the clutch needs to come out, or if the bike even moves...so for now I will seal this air leak so I can carry on and revisit at a future date.

Started by sanding the carb holder faces flat. I tried to level them as close as I could without removing all the plastic material. Next I did the same on the engine side; there was a fair amount of corrosion build up on the aluminum. I planned a block of wood flat and used as few passes of 400 grit, medium pressure and keeping level. Everything got cleaned.

Used Hondabond HT to seal them. I recognize that the service manual does not say to use a sealant, but I am dealing with imperfect sealing surfaces. Hondabond has great thermal properties, is flexible and gasoline doesn't really bother it. I used the thinnest coats possible on both the engine and the carb holders, wait approx 1 minute and then install. Thinner applications cure faster, but Honda states up to 3 days.  I'm away this weekend so this is fine.

Carb sync gauges have arrived. When I return after the weekend I shall put the carbs back on, verify the repair and as long as there are no other air leaks, sync up those carbs. 
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To be honest you would be better off replacing those boots (and probably the vacum caps) due to the cracking. You may manage to seal them against the head but it's unlikely they will seal around the throat of the carbs so any sync activity will be flawed (once the rubber has hardened it wont close up around the carb throat)

Are you planning on riding more than a few times?  You're not a fan of removing the carbs repeatedly?  Might as well do the repair correctly and replace the carb holders once.  You'll be avoiding future vacuum issues.

Again, I recognize the correct repair. At this point I'm expecting that I will be taking things apart again, so I'm not overly worried. I need this to run well enough to shake it down, and then begin ordering more parts. Shipping starts adding up quickly when you just order a part here and there I have sourced the new parts, but am awaiting until I have an idea of what else I may need. For the 4 minutes of effort, this will allow me to do that. 

Joe S wrote:

Again, I recognize the correct repair. At this point I'm expecting that I will be taking things apart again, so I'm not overly worried. I need this to run well enough to shake it down, and then begin ordering more parts. Shipping starts adding up quickly when you just order a part here and there I have sourced the new parts, but am awaiting until I have an idea of what else I may need. For the 4 minutes of effort, this will allow me to do that. 

Get your point about shipping Joe (we are a little spoilt here in the UK with many parts suppliers offering free shipping) it's probably worth doing a basic "mechanical" sync initially to achieve what you want to. I would suggest that a "vacum" sync won't be particularly accurate with those boots and will require doing again anyway once you have had it back apart. A basic sync will achieve what you want and should run well enough to give it a "shakedown"

And not just shipping cost, but shipping time as well. To pay shipping and wait 6 weeks for boots to show up, just to find out I need re-jet the carbs and then order and wait on those 6 weeks, to find out the clutch plates have welded themselves, to order and wait, etc...my kids will have finished college by the time the bike is done haha.

​​​​​​There's a list of things the bike needs in order to find out what it needs. I may not like taking the carbs on and off, but liking something is irrelevant to having to do something