replacing front sproket on KZ400 - funny \"extension rod\"

Hi all...

i odered a new sproket for my project bike a while back (it is a 1978 KZ400)....

just getting around to replacing the old one now, and there is a sutble different between the OLD sproket and the NEW one...

the Old one has a metal rod stiking out from the side...

the New one DOES NOT, yet it DOES have a hole where a rod COULD be placed...

see pic below of old sproket...

What is this extension?

Do i have to buy a new one???

is it needed??

any help would be appreciated...

- prime

I sure don't know what it is but it looks like it actuates that lever with the spring on it in the lower right corner of your picture. Does it kick up your kickstand or stop you from taking off with your kickstand down? Just guessing! Good Luck!

hummmm....

interesting (re: kick starter)...

i'll look into it...

thanks...

- prime

primemover wrote:

hummmm....

interesting (re: kick starter)...

i'll look into it...

thanks...

- prime

Kickstand or sidestand not kick starter. Kick starter is on the other side of the bike.

ahhh.... ya...

sorry (re: kickstand)....

primemover wrote:

ahhh.... ya...

sorry (re: kickstand)....

After further review (from buykawasaki.com), my guess is it looks like it's a (((edited to reduce apearance of stupidity)))...

:blink:



Post edited by: Biquetoast, at: 2006/06/01 13:21

Not to be a smartass but:blink:
whats it stop the centerstand from doing?:huh:
My centerstands are quite well behaved and I have nothing like that on either KZ. I still stand by the theory it's for the side stand. If you forget to put it up it will do it for you. Instead of that embarrasing slam and violent 1/2 immelman when you take a right hand turn. Nope.... I tried but it's just fact....i'm a smartass. Very sorry... :whistle:

I doubt whether you need it but when you will....you will.

Yogi Bear-a

See!

Ummm.

It's a sidestand idiot-proofer puller-upper.

Granted, it's a Rube Goldberg arrangement, but like Gris says, it's there to keep the uninitiated from doing a half-Cuban Eight into a prospective Daddy-In-Law's flowerbeds, or brand-spanky-new Olds Delta 88. Or so those inscrutable oriental minds must have thought when dreaming that thing up.

I guess they thought you "...meet the nicest people on a Honda, but the world's worst klutzes on a Kaw."

If you spend a moment inspecting exploded-view Exhibit A, you find that protrusion on countershaft sprocket (ref transmission gears) makes contact with cam (20) which produces tension on spring (17) which rotates plate (16) which induces spring tension on kickstand spring (12) by rotating stantion (12) held in place by nut (14).

If you find one in working order, kindly donate it to the nearest museum.

Pterosaur wrote:

If you spend a moment inspecting exploded-view Exhibit A, you find that protrusion on countershaft sprocket (ref transmission gears) makes contact with cam (20) which produces tension on spring (17) which rotates plate (16) which induces spring tension on kickstand spring (12) by rotating stantion (12) held in place by nut (14).
.

Very Rube Goldbergian explanation, indeed. I do believe you are right. Nowadays, they just install a little killswitch in the sidestand to keep you from doing that flip that Ambergris mentioned. They're taking all the fun out of everything!

Nevco48 wrote:

Very Rube Goldbergian explanation, indeed. I do believe you are right. Nowadays, they just install a little killswitch in the sidestand to keep you from doing that flip that Ambergris mentioned. They're taking all the fun out of everything!

Tank yewe!

Actually, there's a typo in there; it should read "...rotating stantion *(13)* held in place by nut (14)..."

But the general idea got through, I guess. Hey, it was late. Yeah, that's it. That's my story....

Makes you wonder what they were thinking, as contact switches existed then. Makes me think of a line I saw in a National Lampoon of about the same vintage:

"News Flash: Russian scientists have developed a flashlight no bigger than a golf bag!" :whistle:

(ref transmission gears) makes contact with cam (20) which produces tension on spring (17) which rotates plate (16) which induces spring tension on kickstand spring (12) by rotating stantion (12) held in place by nut (14).


Let me simplify it ......
The thingey meets the do-hicket thus initiating a parrabellium of circularitude. This eccentricity is noticed by the protruberance which sends the kanibalent careening wildly into the nexus. That windey thing gets bent out of shape and changes it's mollecular structure to suit. Fud's law comes into place here and fills the end of the side stand with uberhelium thus raising the stand and lowering odds of a north south directional interchange. Simple....

But the more I think about it I do like the idea of a centerstand undeployer. You could mount your steed which was waiting for you on it's centerstand. Start it and let it warm up while you light a cig. When ready to launch just hole shot it and voila! The sprocket tab collapses the centerstand and you are launched impressivly. Beats the old JATO (jet assisted take off) setup as it always interfered with the drop tanks on the 1000's.:S

ambergrismooon wrote:

Let me simplify it ......
The thingey meets the do-hicket thus initiating a parrabellium of circularitude.... Simple....

*Gotta* admire a mind that can take Quantum Mechanics and explain it terms even a guy like the one pictured on the left (Not *that left*, your OTHER left!) can understand...:ohmy:

But the more I think about.... Start it and let it warm up while you light a cig. When ready to launch just hole shot it and voila!

Hey! I did that once! The crowd must have thought I was bucking for Knevel's job, they went wild - but the guy that owned the 240Z I centerpunched didn't think much of the Op-Art I turned his hood into...:blink: