85 GPz750 Refresh Project

swest wrote: I'm using 15W in mine. It's good to have a spare tank. Looks like I'll be switching mine from year to year. If it's not rock dings, paw scratches, (the four and two legged kind) or just my stupidity, I find more and more blemishes on my tank. Bossie's a daily rider so I can't expect her to be pristine all the time. All that matters is she "turns my crank." :woohoo:
Steve

Thanks for the confirmation Steve, thats what I thought but wanted to double check. As for daily drivers I totally get that, my Camaro was my pride and joy and spent 4.5 years making it into my daily driver/racer in the garage from two wrecks. I knew as a daily driver she would pick up some scars here and there but it every time it stills rips out a piece of your heart, so I totally get that feeling.

Back to the GPz, considering the paint is over 30 years old it is in remarkable condition. That being said there are still many "flecks" of white where the black paint has been chipped from rocks or other road debris. Some scuffs from where PO laid it down or rubbed it on something etc. IT looks really really good for her age, but there is still a piece of that bugs me knowing it is so close to what I would call "perfect" but not pushing her through to completion. I suspect that my big project over the next fall/winter when I put her away again is going to be to strip off all the plastics and fairings and tins and fix any broken fiberglass and dents etc. Then sand it all down and lay down some new paint. Not going to use decals since I have seen what happened when weather affects them (will take a pic of the 'bad' side of my old tank tonight to show what I mean) so instead I will just paint it on. Thinking I will keep the same paint scheme as I really really like it on these bikes, but instead of the decals being red and silver/white I would replace the silver/white (I'm colorblind terribly so looks kinda same to me) with Kawi green. Would match the black and green gear I wear and being Irish I love me some green anyways and can drop in a Kawi green clover in there too. So it would be black with the striping as red and kiwi green. Will have to play around on the Mac and see if I can't find some photo program to play with colors on and post up for some opinions.

Brett

Ok this is a VERY rough "photoshop" job on what one shade of green would love replacing the white/silver on the decal. The first is an original pic of the bike, and the second is same pic photoshopped. Opinions and thoughts from everyone? Bear in mind, can be a different shade and this is a 10 min rough job in Photoshop

Original

Photoshopped

Oh and it would be a PITA but I would still retain the black "Kawasaki" lettering in the green stripe so the Kawi logo wouldn't go away like the pic currently shows.

- Brett

Hmmmmmm
Steve

swest wrote: Hmmmmmm
Steve

I'm not sold on it either.... anyone else want to voice an opinion?

Maybe I just ditch the red graphic entirely and just do black with Kawi green accents and stripping? Dunno any thoughts or ideas I would love to hear!

- Brett

keep it stock .just got my lower fairing parts from the donner bike . if you want to change paint scheme by e'bay parts this way you could always put it back to o·rig·i·nal .i have 4 gpz 750's red , black, turbo red and black and my drag bike metal flake candy blue.

Another vote for keeping the stock paint.

kawi810 wrote: keep it stock .just got my lower fairing parts from the donner bike . if you want to change paint scheme by e'bay parts this way you could always put it back to o·rig·i·nal .i have 4 gpz 750's red , black, turbo red and black and my drag bike metal flake candy blue.

You make a good point, plus it would be a lot easier to do that and use the stock decals (new ones of course) than to do custom paint on it. Not to mention cheaper too. May end up going this route, lot of time till she is out up next winter too so got a while to decide but leaning towards stock again. Thanks!

Oh and glad the fairing pieces made it a-ok

Brett

ayeckley wrote: Another vote for keeping the stock paint.

Thanks and think so

Brett

Well made some good progress last night, waiting for Photobucket to finish uploading pics then will post shortly.

Brett

Breaking this up into two posts for pics...

Well got the bar ends bored out to accept the original hardware and really like how they turned out on the bike, the clutch side came out beautifully...

The throttle side however....

As you can see the throttle tube ends and leaves nearly 1/2" of space before it gets to the bar end. Will need to hit up Home Depot and find some appropriate PVC tubing that I can cut and massage to act as a collar. Want PVC since it will be riding near the throttle tube and I certainly don't want it to bind or catch and keep the throttle WFO at the most inopportune time.

Brett

Part 2

Got the carbs fully rebuilt and bolted back together and one single carb bank now, had a few hiccups here and there and had to go back and redo a few things since had forgotten to do them before buttoning up float bowls or something. All in all made good progress and ready to have the choke slide and assembly put on then stabbed back not the bike. Then its change the crankcase fluids and fire her up and set the float levels, then do a dynamic sync. Lastly need to rebuild the petcock and convert it from vacuum to manual and I can ride her until I finish refurbing the other tank.

- Brett