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It's been a while since I was on here! After being away working on other projects (sailboats, suzuki samurai, house stuff, learning to weld) I got the bike itch again and picked up two 400's for $500 while trolling craigslist. I even was digging through some old boxes and found my KZR patch I never had sewn on!

Anyways, here's a photo dump of the first bike I'm working on, saving the second one for later after I get the first one going, then I'll do teardowns and clean/polish/paint ups.

The seat is a little crooked in this pic, not in the mounts all the way...

Where I'm at right now, I'm buying a house so progress is going on hold for a bit...

sweet !

i was wondering what had happened to you ...

leon

Looks nimble, and like it will be fun to ride! With the undersized padding beneath your tuchas, ya better think about some new rear shocks! Hee,hee! What are you thinking for a final color? Right now she's got that "Brown shoes with a tux" thing going... LOL! IMO, bright Yellow always looks good with Brown upholstery...anyway, pretty cool! have a good time, ride safe!

Nice! The seat doesn't look like it has too much paddin huh. You don't mind that?

The stitching looks ridiculously good though. Thumbs up on that... I definitely want to do something like that in my own build to.

mdouglas71 wrote: Nice! The seat doesn't look like it has too much paddin huh. You don't mind that?

The stitching looks ridiculously good though. Thumbs up on that... I definitely want to do something like that in my own build to.

Thanks! It took a few practice seats and a lot of tinkering with the sewing machine before I got it right.

Yeah the foam is not much, but it's more than my last two seats! I can actually add another layer of camping mat and still fit the seat cover on if I need to, so it will have two layers of the mat foam and two layers of the thinner headliner, which is more than fine for casual scooting around town. If I ever take a longer trip I'll probably need more cushion!

Grumpy Ole Artist wrote: Looks nimble, and like it will be fun to ride! With the undersized padding beneath your tuchas, ya better think about some new rear shocks! Hee,hee! What are you thinking for a final color? Right now she's got that "Brown shoes with a tux" thing going... LOL! IMO, bright Yellow always looks good with Brown upholstery...anyway, pretty cool! have a good time, ride safe!

Yeah it feels pretty light and should be nimble enough once I get the suspension dialed in. I'm not sure about the final color, the seats are easy enough to make so I can mix and match until I think it looks right. I have these two medium/small antique olive drab military surplus shoulder bags that would make perfect panniers/saddlebags but the olive vs the seat vinyl color vs the black is not the right combo for sure.

Got the bike torn down and stripped, sanded and painted (left the top and side polishing for later when I'm bored), did the engine with duplicolor engine enamel with ceramic that I actually had since my last bike project, it was enough for the top. I got rustoleum engine enamel and did the frame, swing arm and center stand and I need to get the hair dryer and heat gun out and start going to town to bake it all on. I was hoping to get an air compressor and paint gun and start doing real paint that will last, but we had a short warm snap before it gets cold again and I'm in a kind of rush to get the bike (both actually) at least back together and hopefully running within the next few weeks since we are buying a house and the bike projects will go on hold for a bit in turn for spending time refinishing floors and updating a kitchen and what not (even in houses I buy I end up with projects, I'm a sucker for pain).

Anyways, while I had the engine out I took the rocker box off to look down the goodies and everything looks clean and smooth, even the chain guides had little wear (the engine only had 2200 miles). I didn't go any further, I'll check clearances and run a compression test with high hopes later on.

nice work !

keep us posted,

leon

I had some time this week to start putting it all back together and cleaning up the parts as they came back on. I am closing on a new house on Friday so I'm in a bit of a rush to get the bikes back together so I can push them over (house is just down the street, easy move) instead of carting boxes worth of bike parts that will get shoved in a corner and forgotten for a month or two while we re-do floors and paint and whatnot. So for now, things are getting the grease scraped off and cleaned up, but I'll be coming back for some more teardown and painting/polishing/wiring when I get the time.

The brake lines and cables need to be replaced with shorter ones, I need to get an angled brake reservoir, I really want to lower the speedo so I need to fab up some spacers or a different bracket, but otherwise I'm happy with how it's looking. It will probably have crappy paint for a while though I have two days to put together what I have of the other kz400 so it's at least a roller...

Mostly there now including all the odds and end pieces except the carbs. I started putting the other bike together except only got so far as finding out that I was missing two ball bearings for the steering head so I either need to find a couple of those or just get the tapered bearing kit from Z1. I was just going to throw the bike together to move and then tear it down again at the new garage but now I'll probably just hold off and build it back up right once I get the pieces all in one place in the new house. I'll check in in a few weeks after the floors and paint are done