Doctorot's '78 KZ1000 build

Mr Holt, I kinda find myself liking the stock Z-1 layout for the forks, the offset and angles. My thought is to find something in Billet aluminum to take it's place. I am mounting a fairing over it, SO does any of the triple trees you know of kinda' meet what I'm thinking ?

That is it! Now for sure the 79 I AM going to do all myself. Going to gusset the frame, decide what kit to go with etc., etc.
Thank you for all of you guys chiming in and those of you who haven't done it but are attempting it. I have lots of ideas and am going to need lots of help.

Colorado Z1, The Doc's whole build. I logged on at 6:00 AM to see a little more of it before I start my day. (and he's just learnding). He may have missed his calling. Have a good one! Nivlac

Nivlac, I am enjoying watching his build as well, I am getting a camera so I can document mine and maybe post some of the picture as well. I am so into this right now, all day long I am planning and looking for parts & pieces. Now all we need is Time & Money !

if you are going to cover your triples with a fairing it seems a lil overboard to use billet triples :blink: .

it is your bike,and you get to do whatever you like. :evil:

if you like the stock front end get some racetech emulators,fork brace,maybe some new springs,polish the legs up and start worrying about what you are going to do with the rest of the bike.

thats my .02 fwiw,ymmv.

keep us posted,
leon

Hello Mr Black Banshee, My motor is done and ready to go, working the frame and swing arm even as we speak. I have built a couple bikes over the years and this one is for me. I am cleaning and smoothing everything, polishing and chroming stuff, I have never liked the ugly metal stock triple trees and the Aluminum ones lend themselves to a more custom/ race look. coupled to my fairing and other trick pieces I think I might just have a winner or the bike to be proud of. It's a full winter project and my hopes is to be riding come spring.

You bike looks nice, what have you done to yours ? is the motor stock ?

i have 13 motorcycles.
the black z1r in my avatar has a stock engine with some mild head work sir.
i built my own swingarm for it from chromoly tubing and shoved a rear wheel tire and brake from a 2000 r1 under the back end.






now you fly up to a corner and throw it at the pavement and start rolling the throttle open as it stands back up and goes flying down the road trying to suck you off the back :woohoo: !
no shakes,no shimmies just pure fun :evil: .

leon

sorry for the thread jack doctorot.

i hope the trip is going well .

Colorado z-1, Got the time looking for the money. Post some pics.

Colorado Z-1 wrote: Hey there, love your work and idea's, it's going to be an interesting bike when done. I like those clip-on's. where did you find those ? I'd like to add those to mine.

The clip-ons are from a 83 sabre, I had Leon machine some sleeves for me so they would fit the KZ forks. Since then the project has gone another step and i decided to do a fork swap, the clip ons will be going. you can buy them, with the sleeves, off me if you would like, but i wont be able to ship them to you until june when i return home. Currently im in New Zealand. Got to see this randomly the other day in Wellington.

Glad to see you are still checking in. That is a fantastic pic of the Britten! That guy is the ultimate inspiration to build cool stuff-too bad he wasn't able to stick around longer. Keep posting if you get the chance, and I look forward to seeing your updated vision on the bike when you get back!

I got back from traveling about 3 weeks ago. I had a blast and i managed to spend alot of time on two wheels while i was gone. Including a 3 week road trip from Saigon to Hanoi on a Chinese made Honda win 100. Also a 4 day trip on a Chinese dirt bike through Laos. IT was amazing. It also had me dreaming about this KZ while i was over there. I have made some progress on the bike since i have been back but looking for work has been a bigger priority.

So since i have been back i have been working on some plugs for side covers. I searched for a while on the web for some info on making side covers from scratch and came up with nada so i thought i would post my approach. There are probably a million ways to make a plug, this is the approach i tried.

I had my buddy weld some tabs on the frame to be able to remove and put on the plugs during this process, and to make sure the cover aligns the same way each time.


i then cut some cardboard to fit and bolted it to the tabs. and made sure everything was covered with plastic.



I then coated the exposed frame with grease, and brushed some epoxy resin on the front and back of the cardboard.


I plan on making two sets of covers. one to run with pods, and one to run with the airbox. I decided the airbox was a bit stubby, and the sidecover would look weird bridgin the gap alone. So i built up some clay flush with it and layed 4 layers of fiberglass up on it.

it will be trimmed later. I also coated the rear master cylinder with grease and then clung some plastic to it so i could lay fiberglass tight to the MC, i also put on a couple layers over the cardboard to give it rigidity