1978 KZ1000-A2 "Barn find"

Adding some stuff to the gauge question. I'm not a painter, believe me but this stuff works proper. After blasting off the original paint i prime with SEMS. just a see-thru coat. Use the caliper paint to apply a couple light coats then a heavier coat till it's glossy and uniform glossy. NOTE, humidity will make it turn matte grey. Heat your oven up to about 275deg., bake it for about 5min. this allows the paint to flow and wala you're done. .Let it sit for a day then assemble.. but that's another process altogether.

Crap forgot to "insert, again"

Old Skool Carb Stick, with Mercury. just sourced it from the out building. Just one of bead of mercury left.

WOW! Has it ever been a long time since I last posted. I have been popping in to the forum on occasion to check up on people's projects, but I've been pretty busy this fall. The farm that I pulled this bike from has sold, and the new owners took possession on Dec 18, so it has been an incredible amount of work clearing 50 years of stuff off 6 acres. Also, helped my dad move, completed some renovations at my mom's, and just working full steam for the CAF. I also got engaged on Christmas Day, so needless to say, there hadn't been a whole lot of extra dough laying around to put into the bike.

However, I have spent some time at the shop, when I can't stare at a computer screen anymore. I've spent some time polishing the engine covers, and I think I've decided I'm going to end up replacing the points and stator covers. The bike has been dropped before, and the points cover is beyond recovery. The stator cover could probably be sanded down to the point of "good enough" but it will never be perfect, and if I'm replacing the cover on one side, might as well match.

I've also finished putting the gauges back together. To be honest, I gave up on trying to put on new crimp rings for now. New ones are incredibly difficult to get to bend over properly. I almost had one done, and as I was tapping the ring home, it caused the needle to rattle off. So, For the time being anyway, I just purchased gauge covers. Drives me a bit crazy that they only come in chrome, as I think they look ugly AF this way, so I painted them. I think they look fine. Eventually I'll have to open the speedometer back up anyway to paint the surround around the trips white on the face plate.



I finally got a new seat(!). I really wanted to get the race style, but I found a flat stock style seat for a bit cheaper, that came with the required bracketry and rubbers, so I went with that for now. No photos of it installed. My brother has decided to take up half my shop with his ATV, 2 dirt bikes and (for some reason known only to him) his 3 point lawn mower, making working, let alone photography, quite difficult.

On Dec 18, I received an email notification that Avon tubes and tires were back in stock at Revco.ca, so I immediately ordered new tubes and Roadrider MkII's for the front and rear. They showed up on Dec 21, which I thought was pretty good considering the Christmas rush. Seeing it the way it showed up, I'm wondering if I should have ordered a different size for the rear. It seems super narrow, and I wonder if I should have gone a bit wider, but bygones. Maybe next time. Still undecided when I'm going to mount them. I have a small desire to take the opportunity to roast the old tire off first...

Congratulations on the engagement! The tires you received are the stock sizes and will look fine once they're mounted. Worst case scenario, in 10,000 kms when your rear is worn out, go a bit wider. I couldn't wait and ended up ordering a 120/90-18 which is slightly wider (about 1/2") than the 4.00. It got cold early in the BC Rockies, so I never did mount it. I might just roast my old one off, too. I've never had the pleasure of doing that!

Well I can't believe it. Finally found a picture of another bike with the ugly seat that came on mine.

Picture is a '73 Z1.

Is that a Travelcade seat?

Congratulations on your engagement! I have a 130/90-18 mounted on the rear. Have been running that size since from the beginning. Love what you did with the instruments. Yeah, those instrument rings are a pain. There has to be a tool or some kind of trick to it. Maybe someone can chime in to advise. I reused the original rings and I didn't do a very good job. But kinda don't pay attention to them and hasn't bothered me since.

TexasKZ wrote: Is that a Travelcade seat?

I have no idea. Haven't been able to find any kind of branding anywhere. Like I said, this is the first time I've seen another seat like it. I'm fairly certain the one on my bike come off an earlier model, as the seat pan does not have the seat catch hook, although it does have the battery acid warning sticker.

Quick job today. Put the clocks back on the bike.


Then spent some time coming with an action plan to organize the shop a little better. This space also serves as my wood shop (not ideal, I know). Decided I'm going to remove one of the benches along the far wall that I never use, put up some shelving there, then take my table saw and outfeed table down and shove them upright in the corner when not in use. Should make for a ton of space.

I don't really have any recent photos of the space I'm dealing with, but heres some old ones from shortly after moving in, including the outfeed table before it was completed.




Anyway, after that I grabbed the carbs and brought them home to swap out the fuel pipe tees. You can see that they were in desperate need of replacement. One fell apart while removing it.


My next (and probably final) order for a while will be a bunch of carb parts and a new petcock.
I replaced the diaphragm is the stock petcock, but the carbs are still pulling a bit of fuel through the vacuum, so that got to go. I've also decided it's just easy enough to swap out all the jets, gaskets and floats, just to give myself some assurance, and to give all 4 carbs the same baseline to work with.
Also decided I'm going to swap out the manifolds. They are quite hard, so it can't hurt.

After that, this bike "should" be road worthy. It won't be quite as pretty as I'd like yet, but I'll need to start saving for a wedding.

By some sort of dumb luck, also discovered an issue with the pilot screw on the number 4 carburetor. Noticed that it had this little pin sticking up on the exhaust side that isn't visible in the other carbs.

So I took out the pilot screw. Pin is still there. Go to number 3. Screw it in a little bit. Ah. There's the pin. Take out that screw to compare.


Yup! The pilot screw on the number 4 carb had it's tip break off and stuck in the carb. Managed to push it out, but I'll have to make sure that whatever kit I order comes with pilot screws.

O-rings too, now that I'm looking at the difference in thickness between those two in the photo...