RESCUE THE 80s

[Mr Jensee]

I love those naked inline 4's of the late 70's and 80's. The engines were fairly simple and elegant in design and ran like bats out of you know what when you wanted them to. I wish you would get those old pics back up and running in the previous posts.

[cushman eagle]

My first three bikes were early '80s GS Suzukis.Yes they were simple,but I still spent more time working on them than on the VXII.I do not miss the yearly valve adjustments or trying to get the valve cover gasket to seal. I also do not miss having to replace the stator and regulator/rectifier on the average of 15000 miles. I did get down to about 1 1/2 hours after 87000 miles of experience however .Unsoldering the connections was the hardest part.

[Mr Jensee]

I hear you Loren, I had a 79 GS1000LN that I replaced the stator, the regulator/rectifier with an aftermarket unit that I cannot remember the name, rebuilt the fuse box, installed a CDI ignition and corrected a ton of bad wiring the previous owner botched. It was the first really big bike I ever owned. Got the thing for free and ended up spending a good $4 grand on it before I just got tired of spending money on it and gave it away. It was a blast to ride though when it did run.

[Lucasind]

I love those naked inline 4's of the late 70's and 80's. The engines were fairly simple and elegant in design and ran like bats out of you know what when you wanted them to. I wish you would get those old pics back up and running in the previous posts.

Hello Mr Jensee, ....I too love the old "naked inline 4's" they were my reason for becoming a m/c service tech back in the 70's. I watched the "evolution "of motorcycles in a negative direction ( in my opinion) to what we have today (and have had for a long time now) where every bike is rapped in plastic taking forever to accomplish servicing. By 89' I had had enough of it and moved on to other things and motorcycles became just a fun hobby to me.
As far as those old photos that are no longer in this old post.... photobucket only allows you to have/hold so many pictures in "your bucket" before they want to start charging you money. I have to delete old pictures to make room for new ones. I still have those old pics in my computer...but would have to reload them into photobucket, defeating the objective ....and pushing me past my alotment of "free storage" ............Tony

[Mr Jensee]

I understand Tony, I have a photobucket page but haven't added anything to it a long while. I guess I never put enough photos on there to have to delete them yet. I don't care for their new format that makes it hard to resize the pics. I don't think I even remember how to log into it. Thanks for the delightful story of the resurrection of the old KZ. I enjoyed reading it.

[Lucasind]

Thanks , I think you may know me well enough to think there will be more of these stories coming ! it is my pleasure !................Tony

[Lucasind]

I finally got to purchase a used seat for this project ! ....watched e-bay forever waiting for a decent seat ... at a decent price ! got this seat plus shipping for under a hundo. (if I knew then ,what I know now..... )............(you know the rest !)I gave away things like this back in the day to help out a fellow biker ,for free !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kawasaki-Other- ... 1936727557" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When I think of selling my bike (that I bought brand new),just like this ...for peanuts, to poor cement to build a shop.....it makes me sick to see the prices these bikes, that I bought new for 3k back in the day ,are bringing now !



anyway........I had to fab up a front mounting bracket...(like the seat ...it was missing also.) of course !





I am bored...due to lack of dailey riding ....So I thought I would fab the front seat bracket........pics to follow.....................................Tony

[trikebldr]

Not to hijack this thread, Tony, but to add to it. Fotobucket may charge, but Flickr doesn't. Sure, I have a pro-level Flickr account ($64/year) that allows me to upload unlimited amounts of pics , but they are normally free and do have a very reasonable upload/month limit. No overall limit to how many pics in your files!

Also, why use any of those hosting sites? Just set up a simple FaceBook account and use them. No limits at all, and free. That's how I post on here. It's easy. Just be sure your image file size meets AVA's requirements, post on FaceBook under the security level of "Only Me", right click on the image to get the "image location", then paste it between the brackets after clicking the Img button on here. SIMPLE, EASY, and FREE!

[trikebldr]

When I think of selling my bike (that I bought brand new),just like this ...for peanuts, to poor cement to build a shop.....it makes me sick to see the prices these bikes, that I bought new for 3k back in the day ,are bringing now !

Cheer up, Tony! That guy will never get close to that price for that bike. I could see some rich sucker paying maybe $10k, but not no $20k.

You're just a good guy, and he's just a jerk!

[Lucasind]

Thanks for that tip Bruce ,I will look into "using" Facebook only for "flipping photos"
not interested in the "chat" "he said ...she said" B.S that goes on there !

[Waterwalker]

this is a very interesting story and I can't wait to see how it turns out. however I can't help but feel sorry for the guy who buys this bike in 10 years and goes looking to find parts for it

As I was thinking the same thing, grinning ear to ear, for that poor sucker that buys him an 'older' bike with very few miles-not driven over 35MPH!! At least Tony is having as much fun building as we are reading.