KZ750L4 - the bike that sat for 34 years.

A little history - my old man bought this bike back in 84. In 86 at the age of 22 he met my mom and wasn't allowed to drive it anymore.

Fast forward 34 years later and now at the age of 30 I pulled this bike out of the shed where it sat since it was parked.

This was my first time building a bike and I started the build before I even had my motorcycle license. The bike needed serious carb work. Needles and seats, o rings, etc everything was replaced. Also rejetted to 140 mains and 40 pilots as I was going pods. The Canadian model has the adjustable throttle slide position so I wasn't worried about tuning.

The bike has 8000km so I wasn't touching engine but I stripped the bike f or paint.

Painted the tank. Went with a patina job.

Going for a tracker/cafe build. Not following any specific plan. Mocked up a set of gsxr forks with LSL bar mount upper triple.

Rear swing arm, caliper mounts and rim was powder coated. Didn't have everything for the gsxr front end yet so threw on the stock front end, put a quick coat of black paint on the rim to match for now as I will be using a different rim with the gsxr front end.

As of right now I have put 450km on the bike in the last week. It runs absolutely beautiful, sounds beautiful and feels amazing to drive. The old man hopped on it and I've never seen a bigger smile on a grown mans face.

To all those with KZs who are looking at doing a gsxr front end - you do not necessarily have to go with the cognito moto front end. For myself I wanted to keep the mag wheel look but thought that wouldn't be possible trying to mesh with the gsxr forks. I added the cognito moto fully built hub and spoked rim to my cart more times than I can count but couldn't justify spending 1500 CDN on one rim.

After months of research I finally landed on a 1979 kz1300 front wheel. It's a 2.15x18 - exactly the same as the rear. This is the only bike that an 18" x 2.15 rim with dual discs was offered on a kz. My current 19" front wheel took a 15x42 bearing leaving little room for a 25x42 bearing trying to fit onto the gsxr axle. The 79 kz1300 bearings are 17x47 leaving enough room for a comfortable 25x47x12 bearing. The amazing thing about this wheel is it has the exact same diameter rotors as the 05 gsxr forks I'm using as well as the exact same rotor to rotor measurement. Therefore allowing me to fit the kz rim onto the gsxr forks with very little machine work.

Spacer measurements are taken and will be machined shortly. Build will be updated throughout the winter.

Hi Corey, I just fitted a z1300 front wheel onto a triumph triple 45mm front end , its going on a GPZ750R1 which is basically the same as yours with some engine changes. I had a similar experience with the discs lining up with the calipers except I had to make a set of 320mm rotors , the Triumph used 320mm rotors, made up the spacers and did a bearing swap {25mm axle as well} and it bolted straight up, I'm using a KZ1000P rear wheel as they are 2.5 inches wide.... Great little bikes...

The 04-05 gsxr used 298mm rotors. The kz1300 are supposed to be 292mm but measure out to actually be around 298mm. I didn't plan this but it couldn't have worked out more perfectly considering the 04-05 gsxr was the only year that made the 298mm rotors.

Coreyeinarson_27@hotmail.com wrote: This is the only bike that an 18" x 2.15 rim with dual discs was offered on a kz.

The 1978 Z1R came with an 18x2.15" front rim with dual discs. And it looks like the police KZ1000 also used (a different) 18" front wheel, with dual discs.

DOHC wrote:

Coreyeinarson_27@hotmail.com wrote: This is the only bike that an 18" x 2.15 rim with dual discs was offered on a kz.

The 1978 Z1R came with an 18x2.15" front rim with dual discs. And it looks like the police KZ1000 also used (a different) 18" front wheel, with dual discs.

My bad. When I was looking for a front wheel the 79 to 81 1000s also had 18x2.15 rims but the larger rotor bolt pattern. It looks like yours with the 78 has the smaller bolt pattern. I went with the smaller one in hopes it would be easier to make a GSXR rotor adapter. However I didn't need too. I spent a lot of time researching front wheel options for GSXR forks and found no solutions other than the cognito Moto options. This 79 rim ended up being a very viable option. I just hope this thread can save somebody a lot of research time in the future. Also I looked at 1000 police bikes and I think they were 2.5 wide rims