Kawasaki KZ650 Starting

 My dad's KZ650 is a pain to start when cold.  After quite a bit of
cranking and twisting the throttle (with choke on) it sputters and
comes to life.  Once warm it restarts fine.  Any ideas?

Also, wondering how many miles the cam chain (or chains for DOHC) gets
on these bikes?  The bike currently has 24,000 miles on it.

Doug

 kb1jec@gmail.com wrote:

Get an AGM battery.

 

What year is it?  I have a factory service manual for the KZ650
sitting right in front of me I was about to list on Ebay, wanna buy it?

I'm gonna assume here (in the absense of any background info)
that this is a 70's early 80's KZ, and if it's only got 24,000 miles
on it, this is a bike that has seen many long periods in the garage,
not running.  Thus your carbs are probably varnished up on it.
The problems your describing are symptomatic of a bike that
needs some basic maintainence on it.

What weight of oil are you using?  The factory recommends 10W-40,
if you are using 30 weight in it the oil is probably a bit thick when it
is cold, leading to the starter requiring a very high current.  That high
current is going to drop the system voltage down, and if this is a points
type ignition (which the 70's bikes were) the spark is going to be
impacted during cold starting.

What you can do to help is the following:

) pull the carbs apart and clean and regasket them.

) Check your spark plugs, make sure they are not carbon fouling, if
they are you should run hotter plugs.  The factory spec calls for

NGK B7ES
ND W22ES-U
Champion N-4-MC

but this is a general recommendation, if your doing a lot of in-town
riding and little freeway riding, your not going to get the plugs hot
enough to keep them clean.

) check point adjustment, gap, plug gap, dwell, all of that.  The
points-style
ignition system is weak on these bikes, (most points style ignition systems
are weak anyway) is much more affected by low system voltage, fouled
plugs, incorrect point gap, weak condensor, etc. etc.

Setting timing on these bikes is tricky.  What I ended up having to do
was take a brand new set of points & condensors, a perfectly clean feeler
guage, and
set the points exactly to the gap settings, then check it with my dwell
meter
to get an idea of where the needle of the meter was supposed to be, then
use the meter and timing light to get it adjusted right.  It is not easy to
get it
setup right, since the advance and the dwell affect each other, it is one of
those
things that just a hair off on the setting will throw everything out of
wack.
If your dwell is off then you will reduce spark voltage, making it harder to
start.

) do valve adjustment.

) Run a compression check.


Don't worry about it, the top end will be worn out before the cam chain gets
worn out.  Cam chain adjustment is very easy on these engines.

Ted

 
kb1jec@gmail.com wrote:

http://www.kzrider.com

There is a bunch of people there with the same bike that can help you.

 
traddaddy@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks, I was looking for something like that.