1977 KZ650B The Year of the Dragon

Hey,

I thought I'd share what I've been doing to my bike. This is the first bike I've owned.

Here is what it looked like when I got it.


I made a new points cover because the PO had dropped it:sick:


We rode it around the rest of last summer. Here is a picture from a local mountain top. It was pretty smoky.


One of my hobbies is metal casting. Here are some new leavers fresh out of the sand. I cast then out of Bronze.



I picked up some pipes of of an SR off of Ebay. Cool crossovers!!!


Cast a new brake pedal pad. I still have to mount this.


Found an Ebay tank to mess with.



I have been riding every day. You can't carry much without Bags. I found some old Shoei bags off of Ebay. I cast new latches and replaced the hinges and made some mounts for them. Oh yea, those tail lights are from a 1959 Caddy.


I made a chin scoop out of fiber glass. That stuff is fun to work with.


I reshaped the seat. This was the old seat that was on the bike when I got her. I glued the felt back on after the foam was shaped right. I used a polly fan on an angle grinder to clean the seat up with.


I pulled the swing arm off while I was puting some new shoes on her and sand blasted it. I then powder coated it with some chrome powder. I like how it turned out.


It's nearly done now. Sorry for the long post. I'll have some more pictures in a few days.

Later,

Post edited by: Powder Keg, at: 2007/07/31 22:54

That's cool, I like the levers. What's the other thing in the mold. The bags sort of stand out a little, you need to get some paint on them.
Mark

The other item in the mold is a head for a cheroot cane. it is a cane with a cannon barrel on it that is lit with a cheroot, or StogieB) One of my other hobbies is black powder cannons.

I painted her this last weekend. I finished puting her back together last night. I just have to get some pictures and resize them.

No smoking around narrow Caddies with canes hanging out the back!:evil: That's pretty cool!

Very nice work,, what did you use to seal the port holes in the tank??
It's amazing the ideas people come up with.

I'll post some more pictures of the port hole tomorrow. It uses a O ring to seal things up. I machined a ring that holds the o-ring, glass, screws that don't go through, and bronze ring. This was then welded into the tank. I leaded over the weld then touched it up with bondo. I also added a flush mounted cap. You cant see it as good in the picture.

Wes

...oh look...a KZ650...:whistle: ...gee, who doesn't have one of those? :sick:

ME!!!

ooooooo, the pain of it all...

Seriously though Wes, that's some wicked cool work that you've done there...cast bronze levers???...I'm just amazed...that's cool!

i'm impressed, funny how such talent gets drawn to kz's, can you cast aloy as well?

I can cast aluminum and brass and Bronze. The latches on my saddle bags were cast buy me out of aluminum.



The original latches had been pried off at some point. So I came up with these. I made the pattern out of wood, then cast them. I'm thinking of casting the collars that hold the exhaust pipes on out of Bronze. Maybe this weekend:)

Looks great
I love the "fuel gauge" and the points cover, and the brake pedal,, and the........etc

Definately some skill there. Very cool.

Bad Kaw wrote:

Definately some skill there. Very cool.

Don't sell him short, that casting and machining is RAD! I bet you could sell a bunch of those levers, their too cool.
Mark