New rider with an old bike

[Sterminare]

Hi everyone,
Already received some help from other members here in technical topics but wanted to make a thread anyway-
I'm from NY, currently an engineering student, grew up with a dad always working on cool cars and bikes and naturally had to find some of my own,

I got the itch and bought myself an '84 CB650SC with 5k miles about 2yrs ago from a couple states over, not in amazing shape mechanically or cosmetically but all there. He wanted $1500 but the bike wouldn't start when I showed up, got her for $750: https://imgur.com/a/vNtWQmV

Always been partial to 80's cars/bikes, something about the sharp angles and rectangles just does it for me. Reminds me of my first car '86 camaro z28: https://imgur.com/a/qy9t4DY The color, the wedge tailight, the rectangle headlight, the rectangle guage cluster with the red graphics.. all extremely 80's and im all for it

The bike sat for another year while I was busy with school. But I found some time this fall and finally got the bike running, it was a cracked vacuum tube that wasn't opening the petcock. About $1.50 later, finally got to hear the bike run for the first time (Didnt know at the time, but only on 3 cylinders...)

Since then I've rebuilt and painted the front forks, replaced the 40y/o rubber brake hoses with stainless lines, rebuilt and painted the calipers and splitter/emblem, restored the left/right controls, replaced some broken levers, put some oem-style grips back on, painted the mudguard, painted the aluminum trim/handle on the back, fixed the droopy turn signals,  and am generally cleaning it up. Thanks to help from some members on here I've determined that I'm in for some light engine rebuilding before I can really get on the road but that's just how it goes sometimes..  https://imgur.com/a/v9RbWmH

anyway, im on a student's shoestring budget but hoping to get the Nighthawk running solid and safe and clean it up cosmetically best I can and then ride the hell out of it whenever I can. Bike is freshly registered and I'm freshly licensed so it's only a matter of time before I can get out there.

Nice to meet you all, glad to have found this forum it's been very helpful already! hope to contribute more posts as I do my little restoration projects.

[mollusc]

I'm not too far from you on Staten Island.  Once you get yourself up and running, we might be able to meet up for some riding sometime.
I used to use my 700S for touring but it has been in a state of suspended animation for a couple of years.  I won "oldest bike" with it in the Ramapo 500 one year.
I have other bikes now; the Nighthawk will be for weekend fun once I get it back on the road.

[Sterminare]

Yea maybe! My goal is to have it running reliably enough to be able to take it upstate and ride through the mountains.. would love to do a great lakes tour one day