New member from England here, introducing myself and my '76 KZ400

Hello good people of kzrider.com

I've recently bought a 1976 KZ400, my first proper bike after getting my full bike licence. My names Jack, I'm 30 years old, based in Gloucestershire, south west England.

This site has already been a great resource to me, lots of great info on here.

I will quite likely be asking for expert advice from folks on here soon, I am an avid tinkerer. 

I've done a hundred ish miles on it since buying the bike since buying the bike last week, it's a lot of fun. However there is some hesitation between 4000 and 6000 revs, and the electric starter doesn't really work. So I have ordered new carb boots (they are currently cracked), new spark plugs (B7ES, to replace the slightly fouled B8ES in there currently) and a starter clutch repair kit and a gasket for the cover. Hopefully fitting these parts along with a carb clean should get the bike running spot on. 
There are also a few cosmetic niggles I would like to improve, main offender being a large hand painted bird of prey on the tank.

All the best, Jack.

Sometimes the breaker point(s) gap and ignition timing need some adjustment and don´t forget to check your timing advancer is moving and not stuck. Some drops of oil will do the job.

What, no pics of the bird??

Welcome Jack from another UK member (Leicestershire)

Welcome Jack. South East corner here but get down your corner fairly often as have a place in Cornwall. 

Welcome Jack. That looks to be a very tidy KZ400. They are not very fast but are nimble and great around town. 

Thanks very much for the tip, I just had to do this on my '83 Volkswagen Polo. 

Cheers. Maybe not that fast, but plenty exciting for me for now. My other bike is a '75 Yamaha DT100, and I drive a 1L Polo and an old diesel VW van, so comparatively the KZ400 is a rocket! 

Hi Nerdy, as requested here is a pic of offending the bird. 
I can't seem to reply directly to peoples comments, only reply to the thread as a whole. Is that normal, or am I doing it wrong?

wrote:

Hi Nerdy, as requested here is a pic of offending the bird. 
I can't seem to reply directly to peoples comments, only reply to the thread as a whole. Is that normal, or am I doing it wrong?



 

That's... that's a bird, all right. Possibly something in the falcon family? Thanks for the pic, btw.

To reply to individual users, click the quote button in the lower right of the post (rather than the 'reply' button). Click in the message composition area that comes up. Then when you mouse over the area below the quoted material, there will be a red dotted line and a small red square regular polygon (on the right) with a white arrow in it. Click the square and then you can type below the quoted bits.

Heya, your bike looks great! I also have a 76 KZ400 but it's nowhere near ready to run so I'm jealous of yours.

That bird though... and the little "ride" sticker on its tail. I kind of love how in your face it is. I'm curious what you'll do with that in future. Hopefully you make a project thread showing it, that'd be cool.

I'm probably just looking at the photo wrong, does yours have a 2 into 1 exhaust going?

wrote:

Hi Nerdy, as requested here is a pic of offending the bird. 
I can't seem to reply directly to peoples comments, only reply to the thread as a whole. Is that normal, or am I doing it wrong?

Yeah that's gotta go

Congrats on passing your test, you have some nice riding roads over your way. I'm between London and Cambridge just off the M11 which is getting more and more overcrowded with horrible traffic.