1981 KZ650-CSR

A riding restoration. It's not perfect but not too bad either.

1981 KZ650-CSR w KZ550-Ltd wheels. KZ750E exhaust. and ZX10 rotor bolts hee

Some of the restored stuff.




Kinda before, but after doing some stuff to it. the spokes are rusty.


KZ550 wheels & 750E mufflers. before installing blue paint set

Nice! I like the LTD wheels on it.

Coming out of lurk mode... That's beautiful! Here's a shot of my black '82 when it was new - miss that thing, was my main mode of transport at the time.

Wow nice! My first bike was an '81 650 CSR!

One of my only pics... back when I was building out an office in my first house's garage

Recent stuff. The exhaust system was in pretty good condition, but it had rust in the typical areas, especially at the manifold/cross-over sections,
so it seemed prudent to do something before it got worse.

Before wire wheeling the rust, but after cleaning & polishing the chrome a bit.


After wire wheeling using a dremel & fine/soft jeweler's brass wheels.
The wheels came in 10-packs or something like that. good thing too, because they could only do so much before the bristles would go flying.
I got them because the chrome was good & I didn't want to scratch it up. I just wanted to remove the rust & clean out the pitted areas.


Rustoleum high heat ultra bar-b-que grill paint. baking in the sun to cure the paint. I guess that helps. ???

Cleaning the insides. I used various methods & it was a lot of work. car wash high pressure rinse. high pressure soap. rinse again. spray some wheel cleaner & engine cleaner then let it sit. then a high pressure rinse. carb cleaner spray. brake cleaner spray. evaporust. I plugged all of the openings & left the evaporust in there for days. 1:4 vinegar & water.

Painting. I did the insides first. I was able to paint the inside of the manifold area fairly thoroughly without overdoing the coatings, applying several coats. I did that first, let it cure for a few days, then gob-coated the rest, spraying a bunch of paint then rotating the mufflers to coat the surfaces. again doing several coats. Before painting the exterior areas, I cleaned & polished the chrome using Liquid wrench silicone spray & clean soft cloths, then wiped the areas to be painted with denatured alcohol & clean cloths. then sprayed several coats. so far it's holding up fine.

Curing in the sun during the summer.


Silver Rustoleum high heat ultra paint after riding a few thousand miles. It's still in pretty good shape.
I cleaned & painted the insides of the mufflers as well.


Digital photos can be deceptive. The frame needs to be painted & the engine could use some attention as well.
I save & use only the good pics & dump the others. hee.

Looks sweet, great job.
John in Granbury