Hey Guys/Girls,

I am new to this site and now a proud owner of a kawasaki. I already did a few searches and tried to find my problem before I made this post just to make sure I couldnt discover my answer out there. Heres my story.

I just bought a 1982 KZ750 with a 1978 KZ650 motor in it. I purchased the bike yesterday for $275. The fram and body is quite nice and everything works except for the speedo and tach cables, they need to be replaced because they dont work anymore. The engine looks nice, but I think there are some problems and I cant figure out what. I am not a gearhead so I am lost when it comes to pinpointing problems. This is what happens: When the bike starts up, it idles fine, maybe just a tad bit on the high side, but it blows out a **** ton of BLUE SMOKE. It looks like a smoke bomb is going off. When I put my hand over the exhaust it gets covered with some oil spray. I also had a hard time getting it started when I went to look at it. Can you help me at all?

What might be the problem?

How much am I looking to spend to fix this?

Did I get ripped off?

Thanks everyone and I really appreciate this if you can help me. I just paid for insurance and a title transfer and all that good stuff and all I want to do now is ride, so I want to get this fixed as soon as possible.

Thank You.

-Matt

 

Welcome man...

Blowing that much smoke is not a good sign. Does it smoke just as bad after running for a while as when it does when you first start her up?..I would do an oil change, compression test, and plug inspection.

 

Welcome to KF
hmm, my first thought was bad valves and the blue smoke. do your own leak down test. Not sure how your plugs read either.

 

hmm, BR beat me to it again! lol

 

It smokes the entire time. I didn't get a chance to do a compression test yet, but I did change all of the plugs. Now I do know that it has new wires and coils, it was in a shop twice, and it has had all 4 carbs cleaned, shims added (whatever that means), and I think thats it.

We has to use a little starting fluid to get it started. It sat outside for a month or so. It also has had the 2 stock air filters replaced with 4 little cone filters that go directly on the carbs. I am thinking some water got in there causing it to have a complicated start.

But for the problem, Do you think it might be that the piston rings need to be replaced? or the valve seals if it has it?

Thanks

 

Did you know it smoked before you bought it? YIKES!!! Oh well, it could be a cool project. Oh and welcome to the forums.

 

$275 I wouldnt say you got ripped off, sounds about right for a good parts/project bike. But it is gonna take some work to get her prettied up.

It is normal for old engines to smoke a little on startup, especially if they have been sitting a while. When that happens you know you are gonna need some serious maintenance soon. With all the smoke you have its definately a problem, do all the checks mentioned above and ride her around for a bit to see if the smoke dies down (could be from storage). Let us know what you got, and be prepared to crack open that motor, if it doesnt need the rebuild now, it should be coming soon. Good luck and welcome to KF!

Bigrig came out of the woodwork for this one, thats quite a feat, lol

 

lol....right. Building a new house and stuff man, taking all my time. Almost done tho, and then I'll be back so much you'll wish me to be gone. lol

 

By shims added, they are probably talking about the valve shims. The valves require a certain adjustment, and that adjustment is made by adding/taking away different size shims. IF the valves were shimmed wrong, it could def cause your problem. It would cause hard start issue, smoking, etc..

It is possible rings, but now I would lean towards valves.

Since they changed the air filter setup, I bet the exhaust was probably changed also, which would require a re jet/re adjustment of the carbs.

Pull us a vacuum reading at idle 1,000-1500 rpm and another vacuum reading at 2500 rpm. With the vacuum gauge connected, pay attn to what the gauge does on throttle acceleration to 2500, and from 2500rpm back down to idle. Post those numbers here. Do a dry compression test, and post those numbers also, and we'll go from there.

Like Dragone said, valves at this point are the most suspect.

 

BigRig,

This sounds like good idea. I am going to get on this asap.

Another new thing just happened. I went to pick up the bike yesturday and it started up just fine, much less smoke then before and idled quite nice. Then on the way back to my place ( about 2 miles ) it bogged down...idled ( not allowing any throttle )....then she died. I then pushed it into a parkig lot and it never started back up. Thats all she wrote.

I have no idea what this could mean now.