kawasaki 550

[ohgood]

I'm guessing kawasaki didn't produce the 550 for very long. One of the guys at works (nice enough guy) bought one for a bill fifty from another co-worker. I-4, 550 cc's, a little more cruiser than standard, and missing a few years worth of maintenance. We played with it at lunch today, pouring gas into the breather and checking for spark on the 4 plugs.

apprently someone monkeyed with the carbs at some point, and the plugs were still dry after 20 or so minutes of attempting to start.

the electrics aren't quite 'normal' either. we'll get into that more over the next few weeks.

looks like a fun project, it's going to need EVERYTHING consumable replaced. very comfy seat, very comfy seating position. nice little bike. now, if it will ever run.....


I wiki'd it, and it appears to have only been produced for 3 or 4 years. if things go too badly in the restore process, we'll break it on ebay. Figured $150 can't go wrong.

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If anyone has a spare throttle barrel assembly including switch/electrics in good condition, he'd appreciate it. We're not picky about who made it

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[The Buddha]

Worked on one tha tused to sneeze in the head gasket when it was cold. Ofcourse it also had the lovely soft intake valves ... so between the 2 shitty parts kawi saved a whole 30c per bike.
Just open up, check the head bolts torques and the valve clearances while in there.
Of course the joy will be the black tar in the carbs. And it you really want a lot of joy, in the tank.
Cool.
Buddha.

[bill14224]

The Z 550 was made from 1979 through 1984.  When I was in college it was a popular bike.  Not as popular as the GS and CB but there were a lot of them out there at one time.  I agree with Buddha, I think, that is, the GS and CB had engines that tend to last longer, as did Yamaha's XJ 550. (a little-appreciated gem in my opinion)   Finding parts shouldn't be much of a problem.  Whether it's worth it or not is up to your judgment and willingness to suffer!

As for resurrecting old UJM's, there are enough of them around to find one in decent shape for cheap.  Only guys like me like them, and I'm in a small minority of bikers these days, so they don't fetch very much.  If you look for them on eBay you'll find that the winning bidder often stiffs the seller and he has to re-list it.  Others get no bids at all.  Others get a bid of $700 or so and the seller wants too much so they don't sell until the seller comes to his senses.  The one you have sounds like a parts bike to me, based on your brief description.  Good luck with it and I hope you can get her running!

[The Buddha]

XJ550 yamaha = POS, transmissions die on em and you're dead ... cant even fix em really if I recall.

CB and GS are better though. And post 84 XJ is pretty solid though. No 550 in that genre if I recall, 600 radians and 700 maxims only.

Cool.
Buddha.

[JB848]

Well OhGood you didn't quite specify what year your Kawasaki 550 was but back when I bought my GS in 1991 my buddy also bought a 1991 Zephir 550 which he proceeded to put a Yoshimira Pipe on and had it jetted. Talk about a wolf in sheeps clothing! Even for it's touring syle and high center of balance it could keep up with any 600 and some 750's at the time. And I think till this day with that Yoshi pipe it is the best sounding bike I ever heard!

His was dark blue but looked very much like this one.

I actually found a vid of one with that exact pipe. Ignore the music they start the bike up in the middle it sounds awesome!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEPBwVPDbMU&feature=related

[bill14224]

That's funny, there are quite a few XJ's still around here.  One of my friends is still riding an '83 and it has 60,000 miles on it and it runs fine.  I had an XJ 650 and nothing on that bike broke in 9 years other than the clutch cable and the pipes rotted-out.  The only people I've heard of breaking the tranny romped the piss out of them until they broke the teeth off second gear.  I'm someone who thinks all those bikes from the big 4 from that era are good bikes, unless they were thrashed of course.

[ohgood]

Well OhGood you didn't quite specify what year your Kawasaki 550 was but back when I bought my GS in 1991 my buddy also bought a 1991 Zephir 550 which he proceeded to put a Yoshimira Pipe on and had it jetted. Talk about a wolf in sheeps clothing! Even for it's touring syle and high center of balance it could keep up with any 600 and some 750's at the time. And I think till this day with that Yoshi pipe it is the best sounding bike I ever heard!

His was dark blue but looked very much like this one.

I actually found a vid of one with that exact pipe. Ignore the music they start the bike up in the middle it sounds awesome!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEPBwVPDbMU&feature=related

man, thanks a TON for that link to the youtube video. that is one sweeeeeet sounding machine ! i'll show my buddy @ work the video on my phone tomorrow. he's already excited about someday getting it running, now he'll be ecstatic !

thanks everyone !

[bubba zanetti]

Good to see another old kwaka being brought back to life. I absolutly love riding my 81 Z750. Just got rebuild the the motor and it'll be finished.

[JB848]

While I didn't ever look at how much HP this bike had stock I can tell you from riding it, it had more then enough power to pull the front wheel off of the ground using just the throttle from 1 through 4th gear easily! It was a blast to ride as much as it was scary having all of that power and being so top heavy!

[The Buddha]

Some how the XJ tranny's died not from abuse, but due to a weird design/manufacturing defect. Cos in 84 they fixed it, and those never die abuse or not. If you were unlucky, it would die almost.

Cool.
Buddha.

[bill14224]

While I didn't ever look at how much HP this bike had stock I can tell you from riding it, it had more then enough power to pull the front wheel off of the ground using just the throttle from 1 through 4th gear easily! It was a blast to ride as much as it was scary having all of that power and being so top heavy!

Stock Kawasaki Z 550 has 58 HP.  You can do wheelies in 1st or 2nd if you rev the piss out of it, but that's about it.  It's about 5 MPH faster than our GS's.  Even though it has about 11 more HP, it's 50 lbs heavier.