TOPIC:

Hi,
I have been a lurking member of this forum for a little over a year, and it has been very helpful and inspirational. I thought it might be time to present my own build thread so that I can hopefully inspire some other KZ owners and probably embarrass myself a little bit too. I guess I should start my formal introduction with a little history of the bike and how it came into my possession. Its a 1976 KZ900 A4 that has been in my family for about 20 years. In the early 90's my dad bought the bike second hand in Pennsylvania where he would ride it to work. After we moved to Virginia he continued to ride it until about 97' or 98' when he decided to clean it up a bit with some fresh paint. He media blasted the frame and placed all the parts on shelves in the garage. The engine sat under the work bench, with just under 20K on the clock. And there it, along with everything else, including the bare steel frame, remained for the next 13 years. He never gave up on building it, I know it was hard for him to find the time and perhaps with two boys one of them might have the heart to build it with him instead. Too bad I never asked, would have been an awesome way to get back and forth to school.
After high school I got out of trail riding, but with a little street riding I felt the itch and started to dig out all those old KZ parts. It didn't seem all that daunting a task, considering my brother and I had built a few cars and they required a hell of a lot more work. So with all the parts gathered I felt it would be worth while to make some improvements so I started reading up on frame bracing and that's when I came across the KZ streetfighter. From there it snow-balled into USD forks, a zx636 swing arm and looking for a set of 5 spoke rims. To sell the idea to my dad, I had to provide some basis of practicality, and he liked what he saw online anyway. Monoshock, plus a fat tire and USD forks for comfort and big brakes for stopping. My dad says I've taken that bike farther than he ever expected to himself, he wants it back now haha. And after being set back again and again this is the second year of the project, and I think I'm on the home stretch.
I have to thank all the people on KZR for putting their projects out there for younger guys like me to drool over. Who needs an x-box
So I hope that you all enjoy the build, with plenty of pictures to keep you entertained and explaining the build up to this point. I'll post a couple pics to capture some attention, but trust me, I have the whole build story to add. These are from the first mockup assembly, except the naked one. I'll be starting from the beginning as I get the photos together.
You'll have to excuse that blue anodizing on the pegs, they've been stripped

Looking real good. Welcome to the forum.

Alan

Nice work, I like the wheels!!

Very nice bike!

nice bike,Id want it back too if my kid built it that nice

killer story!

keep us posted about what you do with this bike.

leon

Not much progress as of yet, and I'm still a hundred miles from the other photo database, but I'll post what I just received in the mail, via Royal Post.

Since I am using a modern fork I have to use an electric speedo, so I found this Velona Daytona 200 at digitalspeedos.com. Very nice people to deal with and it showed up quickly. I really didn't want to replace the stock gauges, I liked the big dials, but I wasn't finding a good quality electric sweep gauge the same size. So why not put this one into the stock housing? After about twenty mins of carefully opening the case I did manage to disassemble it and wrap the old clock up for safe keeping. And what I got was this:

I think it looks pretty good, a little bit like some modern bikes with one clock bigger than the other. Since this is just a mockup it didn't take any pics of putting it together (the ring inside the housing is a coffee can lid), so when I machine up the aluminum ring I'll be sure to document.
And a few more pics of it bench testing:




Thanks for the comments and the warm welcome, I'm hoping to keep updates pretty regularly now. Bluesmoke, the wheels are late model R1 wheels, tricky to get into a GSXR fork and ZX636 swinger but i'll detail that soon.
Back to work

DoubleZed wrote:

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Looks awesome!

Also just pointed out a flaw in my build.. I forgot the speedo was driven off the forks well in my case a gear adaptor.. I just bought the gear driven speedo Doh!!

So I have been working for a few weeks straight now, and I must admit, I did forget a little about posting here. I don't have much of an update so far, but I am damn happy my lovely girlfriend brought the frame up to my apartment, super chick . I took that advantage to get back to working on it and started coming up with a new exhaust hanger. In my first couple pics you can see the one I made last year and i never finished it, 'cause I never was that satisfied with it. With a little spare time on the milling machine, I cut a billet hanger and welded a new bracket that I think will do the bike justice.



Okay so I didn't show me milling it out or welding up the mount, which I know everybody would have liked to see, so I will have to be more diligent with the camera next time. I know that's the stuff I like to see lol. I will photo the whole setup and welding on the new mount (without the engine installed, so it will be a trick to get it right ). For now I have the frame setup wit the exhaust in the apartment for mockup I'm definitely liking this more.
The plan is to start working on this thing more often now, that the frame is actually in my hands up here. And with a nice industrial TIG in the boss man's shop, I can hopefully lay some much nicer beads than the ones you (hopefully don't) see. Nothing makes me feel more critical of myself than when I see photos of my own welds lol. The problem is the microstart on the TIG I was using has a damaged circuit board, and it could not modulate amperage at the slightest touch of the the pedal; it would jump to 100, 120, 160 amps no matter how low it was set. And that was driving my crazy for a long time and making the welds look terrible.
Hoping to get the rest of the build pics up in the next week or two.

And a pic or two of the old mount, just for comparison.

forgot about us !

for shame !

keep them pics comin and we'll see if we can forgive you !

nice work on the exhaust mount.
is the steel piece with the three bolts getting welded to the frame?

leon

DoubleZed: Does the speedo come with the speed sensor cable and magnet? I really like the look of that speedo, really clean.

Devin