Z1 900 Year 1972 Engine Fin Paint

Hi All
I am having great difficulty finding information on what the correct paint scheme is on my 72 Z1 900 engine.
The fins on the end of the Cylinder Head and Cylinder I am told are not painted and are in fact sanded which leaves the fins just bare metal.
I went looking to see what the proper paint scheme is but ended up more confused. In some case only the Cylinder Head fins on both sides are left bare while on others both the Cylinder and Cylinder are both done. I have seen the complete engine painted. I got a book on the restoration of a Z1 by a well known author and he stated that along the sides and front the outer edges of the fins were polished back to a contrasting bare metal finish. Can anyone help me out here and maybe let me know where to start leaving the bare metal and where it ends on the fins and what parts of the fins are left bare metal.

Only the edges of the head fins were exposed alloy from the factory..
Never the barrels.

From David Mardsen's book, original Kawasaki Z1

Hi Thanks for getting back to me.
Yes I have the book and it states the following
Cylinder Block
The external finish of the heavily finned block was satin black, along its sides and front the outer edges of the fins were polished back to a contrasting bare metal finish.

Cylinder Head
It states "the cylinder head finished in black with polish fin edges at the sides and front to match the cylinder block .

I have never seen any Z1 with this engine scheme and this is why I am asking but I have not found any answers.

Thanks Keith

Original 72-73 Z1's had barrel fins stripped also, same as head

And in my opinion. Everyone that paints engine black! Should do also. I am when I refinish my 76 KZ900 engine. I went as far as filing down the fins about ..060" to .125" to make a nicer uniform, almost milled surface on the edges

^ DItto. makes it look way better

Before repainting the motor on one of our '72's, we did much research on exactly this question.

Our experience has been that the outer fin edges on the '72/'73 jugs are more blunt than later production. Most of the '74 and later un-painted blocks have fin edges more like a blunt knife edge than flat.

We also looked carefully at as many '72/'73 motors & pics as we could find, as to where the bare fin edges ended at the paint. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to where the paint on the fin edges ends, leading us to believe they were done by hand, leading to sample differences. Even the few pics in the White Manual and the few service bulletins that show motors are inconclusive. For the most part, paint ends where the flat edge transitions to knife edge.

The four pics below are from our 12/72 Z1. This motor has been touched up a little but, the vast majority of the paint is OEM:








The pic below shows an example of the repaint we did on our 9/72 basket case. We used a fine file and very small scraper for roughing off the paint on each fin edge, then used a wood block and progressively finer grit wet/dry abrasive paper for final fin edge finishing:


The pic below is from our current project, The Wounded Z. We had the cases soda blasted three weeks ago, so this is the only pic we can offer of truly OEM motor paint. It was in rough condition, having been stored in a barn in the PNW since 1986:



Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

Hi slmjim+Z1BEBE
Thanks for getting back to me, I can see from the pics exactly what you are talking about.
I can see the lines where the polishing finishes and starts. I should be able to figure it out with a couple of pics i have.
I will let you know how i get on, I know back in 72 it was not an exact science .

Thanks again Kev