Restoring/ customizing a Kawasaki KD80

Really cool build. It is coming out quite nicely.

Nice job! Excluding labor what have your expenses been?

Probably about $400 or so. We might end up with about $500 in it total when it's done.

Great job so far! A couple of years ago, I had picked up a barn find YZ80 for free and brought it back to life. Doing that project with my son was one of the best experiences I've ever had.

Happy to see that you're bringing an old bike back to life and, you're doing it with your dad.

freetors, great job on the KD80. It may rival your Dad's work on the R100/7 and his KLR650 and you didn't have much to start with, he had complete bike in good condition.

Don from Riverside.

A small update. Haven't gotten a whole lot more done since the last time. Still trying to avoid bodywork...

Anyways we made this new "number plate" that replaces the factory plastic one. This also does double duty to keep the forks from getting twisted.

this is great to see...

around 1982, maybe '83, i had a KD 80. it was the first bike i really wiped out on... WOT, tearing up a gravel road (likely at something like 30mph), started fishtailing and didn't know what to do so i grabbed a handful of front brake. hit the ground real quick. limped the bike home with some bent bars and a swollen knee. i hobbled around all summer with a painful knee after that accident; all swollen and bruised, but i didn't tell my mom anything about it 'cause she'd have sold the bike.

ahh, good times. i'd not mind another one someday for nostalgia.

Great story! This bike actually seemed pretty quick to me when I rode it a bit. Although the low revving engine quickly tells you that an upshift is needed if you really want to keep accelerating.

a friend at the time had a reasonably new XR 80. i'd smoke him regularly; just rip past him. until there was a hill. any hill. no amount of clutch and throttle would let me keep up with that XR if there was a hill.

i do remember that low revving engine. i went from that KD to a KX 80. i rode the KX the same way for a while; shifting early. man, my surprise when i didn't shift once... hit the power band and hot damn! it was a new world. one where i was the fastest. dude. ever.
in my mind at least :)

I worked on the body work a bit today, wetsanding, etc. I dodn't like the front fender and didn't feel like buying one, so I decided to modify it. Here you can see just how big and ugly it is. The rear wheel iis actually elevated compared with the front so it sticks up almost past level.



How I intend to cut it:



After I cut it at the front and by the gaiters for clearance:



The earmuffs are holding the fender down while I run my heatgun over the plastic to bend it down some. It still needs some work though.

Worked on the bodywork some more today. Started laying down the bondo on the tank, nothing really picture worthy. Boy do I love bodywork

New update:

Still working on the bodywork, slowly. Got some nice shiny stainless steel screws in from Mcmaster to permanently replace the very well worn and grungy screws in the engine cases. Finally installed basically everyhting that goes on the right of the engine including the carb cover, kickstarter and a new rubber carb cap. It is back on its own wheels now. Still needs the seat recovered and the bodywork painted.

That reminds me I have to go lay down some bondo myself. Very nice looking little kawi, had a MC1M 90 back in the day. Looking forward to seeing it done.

Ok bear with me. This will be slightly arts and crafty now.

Every custom bike has a name amiright? The KD80 had a little tag stuck on to the muffler heat shield that said "80". I wanted to put something in a little different, a little detail you might not notice at first unless you looked at it for a while. So i made a new nametag.

I started out by making a piece of aluminum the same size as the original. Next, I took some masking tape sticky side up and layed out these vinyl letter how I wanted.



Then I transfered them to the tag:





Then I painted it and removed the letters:



Put in some decorative red rivets to match the frame:



And attached it with some VHB

Well it's been a while. Most of the seat foam has been carved out. All the bodywork has been done and it's going in for paint today

Looking great Do you have any more pictures? It is really interesting to watch

The paint came out really good. A lot better than I was expecting. Going to let it cure for a few days and then back on the bike it goes! I don't want to brag but this might end up being the nicest KD80 there ever was





We did the fenders to but I didn't take any pictures of them.

I couldn't wait. I just had to put it back together. All it needs now is a seat! And I promise, that's not a flat white, it's actually very glossy.

The seat is almost done. In the meantime I have been riding it around the yard a little bit. It runs really well, but I think the idle mixture needs to be leaned out a bit. It kinda gets bogged down until you give it a lot of throttle and clear it out. Also It rides pretty well considering how massively oversprung the rear end is.

All right we put the new seat on and rode it around a bit. We weren't happy with how it was running as I mentioned in the previous post. Took out the stock 80 main jet and put in a 75. We also set the needle leaner. Boy now it rips! I'll have pics tomorrow.