June 2006 26

The polished carb bowls. They aren’t quite as smooth and even as they could be, but I’m not sure exactly how to improve it right now. They look great as is.

These are the KZ550 carbs after A LOT of work. When we pulled these carbs the slides, plates and floats were all frozen solid and they looked awful. After a complete and thourough rebuild, I polished, and lubed every surface as well as put fresh paint on the top covers and supporting bars. These carbs look absolutely brand new.

I’ve been slowly nursing this bike back to health. It isn’t 100% there yet, but the bike is sold to a young chap down in Virginia Beach. Sure is a long haul, he must really want it.

I’m gently wire wheeling the paint and crud of of these fork lowers. You have to be gentle with the aluminum or the wheel will easily scratch it. I haven’t decided if these forks will be sanded and polished to a shine, or repainted gloss black like most of the other parts. Hmmmm. . . I’m leaning towards a polish . . more work, ugh.

This is how the parts look when they’re being put back onto it. It takes a lot of nitty-gritty cleaning and sanding to create such a change, but it’s worth it in the end.

This is basically how every single part on this KZ550 looked when the bike was torn down to begin the build.

The KZ frame took a couple days to complete but it is ready to have the motor loaded into it and hit the road. I hit it with 2 coats of primer, 4 coats of black, and 3 coats of clear. It looks great. Not quite as good as a professional shop would do, but from 10 feet back you’d never know the difference.

Fresh primer ready for inspection.

The KZ frame is all set and prepped for paint. I was going to do a bright red on it, but decided a standard gloss black would be more appropriate.

Hats are necessary when close-quarters grinding so your hair doesn’t catch on fire. The frame is almost ready.