KZ650 cafe-racer

Thank you!

I could polish fender itself into the mirror as I did with its mount, yet with my intention to polish outer tubes of front fork and front wheel being already polished it would be “touch too much”. So, whatever the final finish of fender might be, now it’s “brushed aluminum”. For one thing, with this finish I could clearly see that I left no flaws and for another, combination of brushed aluminum and polished stainless steel looks stunning, both in real life and on the photos:

Wow.
I should probably bury all my tools and never admit to ever having any.

Stunning...

Thank you!

Everything you put yor hand to gazzz becomes a work of art.

Your polishing skills are amazing gazzz!!!

Thank you guys!

Again, Amazing finish!

As an FYI, I will be requesting your procedure/process as I near my polishing stage. For now, I just need to assess what is salvagable!

Thank you! Here is my short notices about polishing:

www.gazzz-garage.com/2019/03/23/kz650-ca...ome-tips-and-tricks/

After I finished with front fender, I decided to tidy front end. I started from front fork. It’s 41mm fully adjustable (spring preload, compression damping and rebound damping) front fork from 1995 Kawasaki ZX6R. I already modified it to fit Honda CBX550 front wheel. This time I had to sandpaper and polish outer tubes before I could repack front fork with new bushings, oil and dust seals and so on and so forth. Thus, firstly I disassembled it:



Then I cleaned insides of outer tubes and completely sealed them, as I didn’t wish to get channels of rebound damping adjuster to be filled with abrasive compound. I also sealed the very rebound adjuster and pin that pressed into the body of tube and fixed this adjuster. The pin is made of steel and is zinc plated. If I left it uncovered I could sandpaper pin by the chance; and bare steel, as it’s well known, is vulnerable to rust.





During sandpapering I also rounded all edges on outer tube. Then I polished tubes. Even if I didn’t make front fork to look more vintage, I definitely improved its design. But let’s proceed to photos. I’ll post them in pairs “before and after”, to eliminate the difference caused by my work. We’ll start with couple of general views:









On photo below you may see the pin of rebound adjuster I mentioned earlier. I left area around it untouched. However, as you also may see, I removed protrusions that fix position of speedometer gear housing, as I don’t need in them.





let’s continue with more close photos.

It’s quite irrationally to order every part when you decided that you need it, so I prefer to write out lists and then order OEM parts in bunches with total price around the Ukrainian customs limit. thus this post may be as well named “another hundred and something bucks spent on OEM Kawasaki parts”.

What we have here is assortment of bolts, clamps, O-rings I didn’t order earlier, and other might–be–useful-for-project parts, like bolts for oils pan or drive chain guide. I see no reason to put efforts in old one when new is available as well. Some clamps as I said: to mount clutch cable to frame and to clamp wires to engine. Sleeves for rubbers for upper timing chain idler wheel. Some proper bolts to replace sprocket cover screws.New snap rings for transmission drive shaft. Some O-rings I forgot to order earlier and little funny rubber ball is the plug for oil channel in crankcase. And so on and so forth.