‘76 KZ900 LTD restoration

Well, some good and some bad. The fitment of the new cover is excellent. The bad is that the stitching is pulling apart where the ‘cut’ in the cover is. And, where the cut is is right where one of the bend over metal tabs is. To me, the cuts on each side of the cover should’ve been right in between the bend down tabs.

That sucks !! It looks real nice too   what is the purpose of those "cuts" ?

That wire runs inside the cover seam on the front half and back half and comes out thru those openings. One opening on each side. That way, when you poke the cover over each little tab, you make sure the wire is ‘below’ the tab and when you bend the tab down, the wire inside the fabric is actually what keeps everything tight. A good bit of engineering I must say because it makes it real easy to replace the cover without having to do staples or screws.

My original cover had wire in it too.

I've never seen one with a wire like that.  

All the seats I've done have a plastic "string" that sits over the sharp edge of the seat to protect the fabric from cuts.  Do you have that?

No string. The seat frame itself where the cover wraps around is pretty rounded. Then the cover gets poked through each very sharp metal tabs every couple inches. You can see in this pic the ‘round’ area above those holes. That’s where the wire inside the cover is supposed to be. The only difference between the old cover and the new is that the wire inside the new cover is a little thicker gauge.

The guys at Z1 are sending me another cover. Don’t know if they are on this forum but what great service. He called me back within 10 minutes of my email to them. I think this time I’ll stitch the fabric at those breaks real good before I put it on.

I agree.  I've bought quite a few parts over the last 12 months and they are good people to deal with, highly recommend them.

So, to elaborate a little on my history and restoration of this bike….I bought it when I was 17 and have loved it since. But as some things do, it sat for a while. As in my first posts, I found a chunk of the cam chain guide while draining the oil 12 or so yrs ago, then it sat. I hate to admit it but yes, it might’ve been caused by not doing the cam chain adjustments often. Earlier this year I decided to get ‘er back on the road. Down to the frame, every nut, bolt, screw and washer came off and was cleaned, wired or replaced with oem parts. It’s been a wild ride. 

While the head and cylinder were off, I had the the valves and guides done, all the cam chain related parts new, cylinders honed and new rings. The bike runs strong, although I’m having small issues on the very bottom end, like right off of idle. Working on that now.

So, the pic in my avatar is from in the late 70’s. I back then thought a “White and Blue” color scheme with my at the time favorite cereal “Crazy Cow” cereal was a cool thing to do so that is I did. When I had it down to the frame recently, I thinks to myself….should I put this back to the original colors….? No, it stays the way I made it when I was a kid. 

 

I’m anything but a seamstress but I stitched up both sides at the weak points and it came out pretty good. I’m hoping the creases settle out with a little time and sunshine.

Looks good. I’m interested in the replacement if your not keeping it

Ok Mikaw. Send me a pm or phone number.

I ended up sewing and using the first cover I received. Just seemed to fit better.

On to the next project. I got these shocks off eBay. They are what came originally with the LTD I believe. The question is, are they rebuildable? I would think they have to come apart somehow . The 2 areas my fingers are pointing to are a hard plastic but I don’t want to start hacking around and screw them up. It doesn’t feel, weight wise, that there’s any oil in shock, but hard to tell. Any thoughts?

I just recently was shown that the 1976 mullholland shock that are original are rebuildable. They have a nut at the top of the shock body. If there is no nut just the body metal rolled over. Then they are not rebuildable.  

That plastic sleeve is there to protect the shock body from damage from the spring coils. They will just slide off. Nothing underneath.