New (to Me) 2000 Kawasaki W650

Hey y'all- Didn't see anyone taking tickets, so I just walked in.

To the "not big enough" folks; too bad for you. I've been all over the country on 650's. Guess I'm too dumb to know how miserable I wasn't.

Love my 16 tooth sprocket up front. That's interesting tha Kaintuck hates his. Wonder what the difference is? I find I get plenty of poop down low, handles the mountains fine, go fast enough for me...
I still have the jerky throttle thing an low speeds some, even though I have different jets and stuff. Glad to know it's not just me.

I tried to modify my seat by scraping that hump. Yeaahhh- you know what I'm talking about. Tried a Corbin but I don't think I'll live long enough for that POS to "break in". So- I'm finding a sheepskin is the way to go. It looks dorky, but my butt likes it.

BikeMaster superbike bars / shims.

You HAVE to put -shoot. I forgot the name of those shocks. I think they used to be named Koni? Well, the butter is slipping off my noodle... Anyhoo- the ride is so much better you won't believe you waited so long.

The Yahoo Groups format is kind of a PITA, but their W650 Group can be quite helpful. I'm glad to see a running W spot, too. over 25K on my Watchless;

Hagons!

(I also hate that bogus neutral helper thinger that gives a false neutral light. What the heck is that about?)

Ikon perhaps?

Uncle Ernie that is a sweet looking W. Did you put a custom tank on it, or is that the original with a different finish?
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- Hagons -


That's an aluminium tank made for the W. A French place (V-D Classics ?) and a German place (W65Shop ?) makes and sells stuff for these bikes.
I got one from Germany just because they seemed like they understood English better.
You have to cut the stock seat front back about an inch, but I didn't find that to be a problem. I used a wood saw to cut through the plastic pan. Aside from denting when the bike lands on top of it, I have no complaints.

Well, sometimes I feel bad when an old fart (like me?) runs out wanting to see the Brit bike and I have to tell him it's a Kwak-job.

Congrats! Kawasaki's little copy of a copy never got much respect here in the US, but I love the bike and hope to add one to my garage someday. Hope to add a few so actually, so I can shamelessly copy some design ideas from the guys at Deus Ex Machina.

http://www.deus.com.au/#/bikes/motorcycles/customs/deus-w650-street-tracker/

Tough sell on the wife though. She thinks having one bike in the garage is a selfish indulgence. Gotta work on her for the second!

Glad to see you created this thread. Keep it up!

Nice. I considered getting a tank from either the French or German place as the PO of mine dumped it on the driveway and there is a divot in the stock tank. Plus the polished look is pretty awesome.
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It is not that I hate the 16. In fact the feel, sound and power all all improved on every level except it struggles to pull top gear with any reasonable fuel economy. Maybe if I had that tank it wouldn't matter. What brand, how much and where did you get that thing of beauty? The 16 with a 41 rear will likely be the near perfect gearing I am looking for. The 16 made the bike sound and feel like it gained 100cc. I really liked it.
Barry

Sorry. Should have read further posts. I see the tank info.
B

I have it on my garage wall. Nice bike. Liked when I saw them in Tokyo in 06.

So I bought a Powerlet outlet and mounting bracket for the W. My intention is to wire it into the pre-existing 10A accessory circuit whose connectors are under the seat. The tricky part is finding a mounting location. I'd prefer to have it on the left side of the bike and I'm not too keen with having it on the bars.

So far though it seems like the only realistic place on the left side is the lower side cover screw, if the screw is long enough. That also puts the back of the socket in the path of chain fling.

Any other good powerlet mounting ideas? Intended use is for the air pump in my motopump kit and perhaps occasional use of a heated jacket tho I know this bike doesn't have a high capacity alternator.

Those aluminum tanks look great, but I hear they dent easily. I heard of one guy who dented his, couldn't fix it, so put a matching dent on the other side. On some of them, the baffles vibrate loose and they are big bucks to fix, if you don't have a warranty.

Bernie Bernie Bernie... I sure wish your Mom could put a lock on her computer.


Anyway, there's room under the seat for some little things. Why not just leave the outlet in there and let it just hang out from under the seat for electric vest hook-up? It sounds like you'll hardley ever use it, so why put it ANYwhere?

(Maybre I don't get what a Powerlet thing is)

OK so since you guys were useless with mounting ideas for a power socket I came up with my own.

First I went and browsed the Powerlet web site.

I browsed through trying to find some stuff that would work for the bike. In the end I wound up buying a socket and a mount:



and



While flipping through the owner's manual, I saw that Kawasaki had thoughtfully provided a fused (for 10A) accessory circuit which terminated in two leads under the seat. In this photo you can see the two leads and the fuse pulled out from the fusebox (so I didn't short anything out while wiring up):



I threw a meter on it and found that the white wire is +12V and the black wire is ground. Also, it's hot all the time. I made up 2 lengths of wire with the proper connectors at each end for the short run and mounted the outlet to the bottom screw for the left side cover. It seems like the screw has enough length to accomodate the Powerlet mount but we'll see if it vibrates loose. Put the fuse back in, tested it with my Gerbing's jacket and hey we got power. Easy 10 minute job.



Now a little charging system math: The service manual quotes the charging system specs as 18A - 14V.

The low beam headlight is 55W, taillight 5W and running lights probably 5W each. Total of 70W constant load as far as lighting goes, at 14V that's 5A dedicated to lighting. The only other electrical load would be the ignition system and I have no idea what kind of power that consumes. It's fused for 10A so a wild-assed guess would be 5A constant so let's say 10A of the charging capacity is in constant use meaning if I ran my Gerbing's 6.2A jacket at full blast I'd just barely be doing better than breaking even on the charging system. Good to know I guess: shut the heated jacket off when at idle.

I made a couple of changes to the W this week. After my cali trip I knew I needed better aero especially for winter. A call to Memphis Shades netted this Roadmaster w/s. The aero is superior to the National Cycle Plexistar II and the mounting hardware is great. The bags are an old set of Willie and Max pseudo leather that I had laying around. They mounted easily to the GIVI bag mounts using plastic wire ties.

Barry

Here are a couple of pictures:

And another view:

And one more:

That bottom shot answers a couple of questions I had about the one above...
(not) :huh

Is that an after-market seat?
Got an overview of the trip? Good raods, had a blast / mierable and you'll never do that again? -what?

Lately I've had the chance to ride a lot of the new machines.
They are all excellent.
I've been lurking on this thread for awhile.The appeal of a basic bones nostalgic ride that is reliable makes a lot of sense.Its almost like going back to what bikes are supposed to be.
I just want to curse the lot of you for planting this seed in my mind, damm you all