Rear Tire Question for '79 KZ650 B3

The diagrams at kawasaki.com show all 1979 KZ650 models having tubes for both spoke and mag wheels.

Lots of good info on kawasaki.com, including parts diagrams, part names, part numbers, models sharing same part, availability, etc. Here's a link for help with navigating the site and finding information.
kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...w&catid=13&id=376734

Could view later years KZ650 models to see when tubeless wheels arrived.

Just guessing, but wouldn't be surprised to learn that all KHI oem rear drum brake mags were tube style wheels.

Good Fortune!

Yea, definately tube type and not original which were spoke wheels. Hard to say what wheels you have, but if they are original width of 2.15" a 130 anything is way too wide. 120 is too wide too. 120/90-18 was not original. 4.00-18 was. The difference is 120/90 is wider but about the same height as a 4.00. 120 is pushing too wide for a 2.15" wheel but that is the absolute limit. Sure guys run bigger tires and every brand is different, but as a general rule a 130 is not a good width for a 2.15" wheel.

OK, so I grabbed my trusty 2.99 Made in China digital caliper from Harbor Freight to do some measuring.

It's dead as a doornail (which probably explains why harbor freight sells it for 2.99).

So I used a ruler and measure my Z1R wheel. You can see it's right at 2.15", if you measure from the inside of one bead to the other.





I then took the (dead) caliper and measured the width of the wheel from the outside of one bead to the other. Here's me doing it on the Z1R wheel.




I then checked that measurement against the back wheel on the bike. They're the same. There's no way to be sure about the width on the rear wheel on my bike with the tire on it, but the fact that the outside measurement matches the Z1R front wheel leads me to believe they're the same width; 2.15"

Here's the back wheel on the bike. It's just the same 7 spoke Enkei wheel you see on hundreds of these bikes.

seanof30306 wrote: ...

...same 7 spoke Enkei wheel you see on hundreds of these bikes....

The rims shown here seem to be tube-style.

Good Fortune!