Back From The Dead -- 1979 KZ1000 LTD

I've been a long-time member, but have not been active for a long time...

November of 2015, I moved from Wisconsin to Idaho. I took a job at a dealership immediately, which I now manage the parts department of. I had my 1977 KZ1000A transported from Wisconsin to my home pretty early on in my living here. The bike had really been gone through by myself over the years, but I never really did get it to run the way I wanted it to. The bike had also had some bad frame modifications prior to my ownership, which made it a one-person cafe style bike. The engine always had oil leaks I'd be chasing down, and eventually I discovered a crack in the engine case that I decided wasn't fixable / worth trying. I lost interest in the bike over the years. The title is to the cracked case half - and the frame wasn't anything I wanted to mess with due to its condition. I decided to dismantle the bike, keeping all of the parts - most of which are pretty nice. I decided one day I could use the parts to help with another project. I have accumulated some more project material over the years, and more parts. It's just how I am. I may not have had the spark to work on anything - but I never stop collecting! In 2018, I bought a brand new Z900RS from the dealership I work at. It's been great, and I still have it. However, as years passed... I still was missing having a KZ. 

Fast forward to November 2024. I watched a Facebook ad for 7 months before pulling the trigger and making an offer. The bike had been off the road since 2008. The original owner was a Kawasaki tech that owned the bike since new, and he passed away sometime around then. Since then, the bike had been in a barn, then a storage unit since the last owner picked it up. He decided he didn't want the project after a while and put it up for sale. Originally he was asking way to much for a filthy, non-running 40,000 mile bike. I ended up taking it home for $1250.00. I thought that if it wound up being too far gone, at least I'd recoup that much.

Here are photos from the Facebook ad-



Around mid November, I hauled the bike home on a trailer one evening after work. Immediately I went to work with the pressure washer, in an attempt to see what was under the 16 years of grime and mouse poop!

Engine -- As it was.


The engine was absolutely sickening, with all the excrement. The first thing I did was spray the bike down with Oil Eater and start pressure washing it. Things started to look up after a few rounds of this, and I started to realize that I actually had something worth working with on my hands. I removed the old chrome engine guards - which I can't stand, but also wanted a better look at the cylinder. Nice and clean, actually. There was no cracked fins, no signs of monumental oil leaks. Good news there! 

I moved on to seeing what needed to be done to attempt to start the bike. The engine turned over, so I knew I'd get something out of it without too much effort. Now, as with every single old bike that I've ever dragged home, the stench of turpentine was there just being around the bike, and I have a horrible sense of smell. Upon opening the tank, sure enough, it was what I had expected. The good thing was that there was no severe rust, no pinholes anywhere or such. Very solid, just coated in a slurry of brown grease and goo inside. I took to that project first. I like the product Evaporust for this work. It works better than Vinegar and you don't get that instant flash rusting that Vinegar seems to bring with it. I did use a handful of hardware and a lot of shaking to help the process along!

     

One neat little detail -- The dealer badge on the fuel cap. I have seen this before - even had a fellow in the UK send me a photo on Facebook of his bike ALSO from Idaho!! Pretty neat, and supports the story that the original owner bought it at the dealership he worked at. 

 







 

Great find, and welcome back.

Somebody around here was looking for some of those chrome engine guards. Don't toss them, yet.

Thanks! Great to be back in the game. I definitely won't toss them, I know there's people that like them! They're in nice shape too.

Moving forward, I decided now I'd take a set of VM26's I'd built and shelfed and see if the thing would pop off. I had a WPS battery laying around that had never been activated. I got that filled and charged, then readied the fuel system and ignition system. Fresh carb boots, fuel lines and filter. Ethanol free 95 octane. Denso W24ESU plugs. Checked the ancient Andrews coils for continuity/ resistance, and that I had spark when I needed spark. Everything was looking good. The time finally came to start it after some fresh oil. The bike fired right up but wouldn't run. It'd do this over and over. It wanted to run but something was stopping it. I happened to notice a few little embers floating from the exhaust....

   

Pulled the baffle and found the worst plug of mouse house ever. The smell of ammonia about knocked me to the floor. Chucked the baffle in the trash and thumbed the starter button once more to be rewarded with instant fire, and IDLE!!!

With the bike running, there's a lot of smoke everywhere from 16 years of whatever you can think of. I noticed that there was smoke coming from the header connection area- and realized there was a bad seal at one exhaust flange. Upon removal it was evident the exhaust flange was compromised from some sort of drop or impact. Weird. Well, this was the opportunity to can the rusty, dented and scratched up MAC exhaust and go for something else. Black Friday was right around the corner and I knew I needed an exhaust I liked and was new and sound.  

Delkevic 4-1 came in at under $400.00, shipped and received in a matter of days. 👌

You may have noticed some very flat carburetors in the previous photo.... I always wanted to have a set of RS34's of my very own, rattling away in their strange glory. As an older man, I now have a few luxuries when it comes to spending - so spend I did. Let me tell you, they are glorious. I don't think I could go back to the VM's again, but time may tell....


 

I hate K&N air filters, so I searched high and low for UNI and found them. I'm loving the look, the fit, everything. The bike seems to run great on the stock jetting, although improvements will certainly be had with fiddling with them a bit.

madmatt1 wrote:

Moving forward, I decided now I'd take a set of VM26's I'd built and shelfed and see if the thing would pop off. I had a WPS battery laying around that had never been activated. I got that filled and charged, then readied the fuel system and ignition system. Fresh carb boots, fuel lines and filter. Ethanol free 95 octane. Denso W24ESU plugs. Checked the ancient Andrews coils for continuity/ resistance, and that I had spark when I needed spark. Everything was looking good. The time finally came to start it after some fresh oil. The bike fired right up but wouldn't run. It'd do this over and over. It wanted to run but something was stopping it. I happened to notice a few little embers floating from the exhaust....
 Pulled the baffle and found the worst plug of mouse house ever. The smell of ammonia about knocked me to the floor. Chucked the baffle in the trash and thumbed the starter button once more to be rewarded with instant fire, and IDLE!!!

Hi Matt, glad you posted these pics (I'm sure in the past when I have suggested this as a possible cause of running issues on bikes that have been standing, people thought I had "bumped my head") bike looks good and by UK standards is a "platinum bargain" (would be $3k - $4k here as a "project")

Hi Wookie- Thank you! I guess I am pretty stuck in the past when it comes to bike prices. I have had 4 KZ1000's- 2 that ran that I paid $2400.00 for each, and two non-runners I paid $1200 each for.
Where I am located, the pricing on the bikes is usually fairly good IF you can find one. They just never pop up anymore! The thing I like to do to negotiate is go over the pricing of everything that will inevitably be required to overbore & freshen up one of these old motors. A Wiseco piston kit, timing components and gaskets alone can now really easily set a guy back $1500.00! And there is always WAY more to it than that. However, I would buy bikes like this one over and over until I ran out of money!

Yes, the rodents will sure cause a host of issues - Although I will admit this is the first time I have seen an exhaust plugged absolutely solid, I have definitely found mousy debris in several exhausts. They also seem to love the air filter boxes! The under side of the seat on this bike was just about enough to make me vomit.... I hate mice more than ANYTHING!

With a new exhaust and carburetor setup, the bike is now starting very easily and sounding great. As to be expected, it did create a lot of smoke on it's first sessions of running again. Luckily, that has been vastly improving the more it runs. Although I have everything on hand that is needed to do an overhaul, I've been praying that I won't have to open the engine up for a while. In the past, I have been way too hasty to dive in to tearing apart a motor. With more years of experience on my side now, I am in no such hurry to do so. Sometimes a bike just needs to run and things just magically seem to remedy themselves. Sometimes not! I don't have any intention of going for perfection with this one just yet. I have been savoring each mini-project that I complete and seeing the bike improve each week. That is the real joy in these machines for me, using what I know and what I have on hand to just get them looking good and riding again!

Luckily, everything so far that has been needed has been an easy enough fix. First off was to replace the master cylinder. It was some strange non-OEM unit that was ugly and didn't have a provision for a mirror. That I replaced with an early KZ master cylinder, and bled the brakes. The brakes worked great with minimal effort. I then bought a new set of Kawasaki mirrors - they are still readily available! The headlight was cracked and foggy- so I replaced that with an LED unit I had laying around. Not too in love with the modern look of it on this bike, as I am trying to keep it as original looking as possible. It does work great, though. There were some aftermarket rear turn signals sort of flopping around when I brought it home- those I replaced with OEM signals that I also had on hand. I replaced the LTD handlebars with a stock set of standard model bars, and swapped the seat out with a standard low-profile seat that has been under a bed for years waiting to be used. I added a grab rail because I had one and I love the way they look! Replaced lots of the little bushings and hardware that were old and tired, and I've done a lot of repairs to the wiring, but nothing major. It's just been a lot of replacing connectors, getting rid of goofy little things that were added on, etc. Lots and lots of cleaning, and adjustments, but that stuff is kinda fun, right?

With everything pretty much sorted out, I decided I was ready to go for a ride! The bike really has cleaned up well, and truly doesn't look to me like the bike I brought home. It is far from perfect, but is already something that I am very proud to ride, and actually feeling quite confident in the reliability of!










 

Welcome to the madness, Matt!
You fit right in with the rest of us on KZR.  There are a lot of us that just want to have a reliable, clean old KZ to ride (myself included).  I am having a similar journey with my Z1 that I've owned for a little over 40 years, it sat sleeping from 1994 to 2020. Now I'm riding it and picking away at little things.  Look back to a post from 2022 titled "why a KZ..."  and you can see where I started.