'78 KZ1000A2A (now a hardtail bobber)

I recently bought this bike with very limited info on it's history.

It was advertised as stretched and lowered with a 'police engine'.

When I bought the bike it had a flat tire, a 4-2 header with an old set of Harley tail pipes. It came with an almost new Sidewinder header and canister.

So, little known history of what was done to it.

My plan is to get it mechanically sound for riding this season, see how worthy it is and determine how far I want to go with building my ultimate ride. That wouldn't be too far away from what it is now, just a huge rear tire and nice paint job.

When purchased, it needed some top end gaskets, a rear tire, seat reupholstered, a better exhaust system, and a lot of tlc. Oh, and a paint job.

The day I bought it,the PO said, "If you open the engine up to do any work,let me know what you find in there. I want to know if it was modified or if stock KZs run as good as that." He had only owned the bike a year or so and didn't ride it much so he knew very little of its history as well.I bought the bike without riding it. I showed up ready to test drive it but the rear tire would not hold air. PO didn't have air onsite and the tire was 3/4 flat. He had filled it with Green Slime the night before, trying to get it to stay up but it was nearly flat. The tube inside the spoked rim was leaking green stuff out around several spokes. So, he jumped on it and took it down the street. As he went, I heard the engine racing like the clutch was slipping badly. He agreed when he came back and was befuddled as to why. He said the thing ran great the day before and when shifting nearly pulled his hands free from the grips.


Long story short, we made a deal and he ran it enough to get it up on my trailer. as he put the front tire against the front rail of my trailer, the engine again revved a little like it was slipping. That is when I saw what was happening. The rear tire was spinning on the rim! I was relieved to see that. So maybe the clutch is ok. Earlier, I had asked about a few small screws around the rim of the back tire, jokingly saying, "are those bead locks?" He confirmed they were, as someone had problems with spinning the rear tire on the rim. Really.

So,I have had it for two week now. Making some progress.

I have ordered top gasket and cam plugs. I removed the top cover to prep for the fresh seals. While open I figured I would check valve clearances. That checked out ok. Then I measured the cam lobes and came to find out from some good folks on here it apparently has some mild cams installed. The lift is about .060 higher than stock. Cool.



So, the cams got me wondering if anything else was done to this engine. I started researching online on how to tell if your engine has been bored without tearing it down. The only tip I found was to try to look into the spark plug holes and see if the pistons had domes. One site had a picture of a stock flat-top piston next to a domed one. They claimed if it has a dome on it, it is aftermarket and higher performance.

So, I pulled a couple plugs and tried looking in there. That's a small hole. I couldn't see much so I grabbed a long, thin screwdriver and gently probed the top of the piston. My pistons are domed from what I can feel with the probing. That was like finding a $10 bill inside a flea market wallet! It just keeps getting better.

A new tire is now installed. Same 140/70-17 that was on it. If the bike runs well and I decide to keep it long term, I will go with something much larger. The swing arm could probably handle something in the 200 range.

It had no turn signals or gauges on it. I bought a mini tach from Harbor Freight. I need to make a mount for it. As far as speedo, I am going to simply use my Droid smartphone on a handlebar mount with a speedo app for now.

Turn signals. I found some super bright LEDs I will use. I need to figured out what arrangement I will use for a taillight altogether. I want all LED lighting except headlight. the front turn signals will be LEDs mounted on the mirror stems. I will have a picture once the mirrors arrive. The rear turn signals are yet to be determined. Same with brake lights but they all will be LED. I already installed resistors on the turn signal circuit so the flashers will operate. Gotta get a picture of that,too.

Dash indicator lamps like high beam, neutral, turn will be all LEDs as well. I just haven't decided where I'm going to mount them yet. I'm waiting on the cell phone mount to get here so I can mock up all my dash at one time.

The bike has almost straight drag bars on it. Nice, but a little too far of a reach for this old man's back. I found some really cool dog bone handlebar risers on Ebay. 4" high and the way they mount, I can extend the bars back over the tank as much as I want.

That bike will be a good one. I like the look but am with you on new paint. Roy

roy-b-boy-b wrote: That bike will be a good one. I like the look but am with you on new paint. Roy

What? Change the color? looks like it is straight from Rocky Top! volunteer orange!

Nice find on the bike!

Chris

...If you like that paint job then feast yer peepers on this, the last remaining part with the orange paint/covered with checkerboard vinyl/covered with a bazillion coat of clear.

I'm not ready to reveal the new color scheme just yet...

I have a lot of work to do on the tank. I managed to get the stickers peeled off.



Here's the little LED I'm using for turn signals. From an online company called Oznium. Very good customer service.



New tire installed.

This is what I did to make the flashers work. This bike has two flashers, one for turn and one for four way emergency flashers, both which were no good. I wanted to buy what I had researched as 'electronic' flashers that would supposedly work without the load of a regular incandescent bulb altogether. Well, I bought 'electronic' flashers but they still would not flash so I installed a 10W resistor on each turn signal line then grounded the other end. I wired them both to a small aluminum heat sink from an old computer power supply. They get hot when operating, thus the heat sink. This arrangement is currently in the headlight bucket. If I run into tight space problems, I will put it under the seat. I'm thinking it would do better back there anyway for increased airflow. If anyone knows of a flasher that will operate LEDs without a load,let me know.

fivestring wrote: ...If you like that paint job then feast yer peepers on this, the last remaining part with the orange paint/covered with checkerboard vinyl/covered with a bazillion coat of clear.

I'm not ready to reveal the new color scheme just yet...

It even has the checkerboard like the vols endzone!!
Chris

Got a few minutes to work on the taillight. I have an LED strip I got from Oznium I am going to use as turn and tail lights. I researched requirements for lighting regulations in Georgia. The only thing the laws address is you don't need turn signals on a motorcycle but if you do, they must be in good working order. Anyone with actual code info please chime in. Georgia seems to be very relaxed on such things.







Then, for brake lights I purchased super bright red 5mm LEDs. I drilled holes across the top of the license plate holder and wired them all together. The pictures don't capture the true intensity of the LEDs. They are very bright. I will cover the old holes in the plate with a strip of aluminum.

Looks like a nice racer. :evil:

I got some time over the weekend to fiddle with the bike. I came home Friday morning to find a strange looking item in my driveway....



It was a care package from Brian (kz10006)!!! YAY!!!!



My 'new' exhaust system had arrived, along with some misc hardware and a horn. Brian did a great job of wrapping everything double and triple protected. Even the edges of the header and tailpipe didn't get dinged because he took the time to pack it right. Thanks again, Brian!





I immediately started working on prepping the header for paint. I got out my high dollar sand blasting rig...



It's the cheapest one Harbor Freight sells. And it worked very well. I used sand from my driveway as a blast material. I borrowed the colander from the kitchen (wife said I could keep it when she saw what I was doing, hmm)and sifted some sand to clean out the debris (we have a cat and a bunch of chickens :huh: )then laid it out in the sun to dry completely. NOTE: I have read using sand as a blast medium is a health hazard. Breathing the dust is the danger. I was outside on a windy day and stayed upwind and I actually held my breath while blasting.

I was very satisfied with the result. Here's the canister with the chrome blasted and dulled out...



A little VHT paint and it was ready to mount. Pics to come.

I ordered some mirrors from Ebay.



There is a small space or hole in the stem of the mirrors. I plan on mounting a high flux LED (very bright} in that space as my front turn signals.



The bike came with no dash or gauges mounted and a speedometer head in a bag. I tried using it but no go. So, I decided I would do my own indicator lamps, again with LEDs, like turn, high beam, neutral and mount them on whatever 'dash' I come up with. So I need speed and rpms. Harbor Freight is a regular stop for me about once a week. Alas! They sell a mini tach for about $26. I grabbed one.



Now, what to do for speed... enter SMART PHONE! I have a droid2 and there are many apps for tracking speed, altitude (not attitude ), heading, etc and will track your course so you can see it on Google maps and download, print and forward your journeys to someone who cares, like yourself.

Anyhow, I found one called SpeedView (free) that is a simple speedometer, clock, heading and an odometer that doesn't reset to zero when you quit the app. That means it will continue to accumulate miles until you reset it to zero. You say, "Fivestring, why is that important?". I say, "So ya don't run out of gas!".

I found this phone mount on Ebay (yup, I'm a cheap bass turd. Ebay, Craigslist, Harbor Freight...see a pattern?). So, I will have somewhat of a digital dash, that I can set the colors of the display as well as choose mph/km and digital/analog. There are some other options as well for more info to be displayed.

SpeedView

SpeedView by Code Sector >250,000 downloads, 14738 ratings (4.3 avg)

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