new member from vic, australia

gday
im new here from central victoria, australia (castlemaine)
My reason for joining this forum is that im going to be converting a kawasaki z250 into a bopper during the winter months
I frequent the oldholden.com forum and the 4wdaction forums, with the same username
over here we have a learner restriction of 250cc max, and thats why im using the z250
i have never built a custom bike b4, so will be asking plenty of questions. my other bike is a honda xl250, that is used only for bush riding.
my plan is to build a chopper style bike

i will try to post a pic of the bike as it currently is

Stepto,
welcome to KZ heaven. Please post pics of your bikes when you can.
Good to have you on board...
Grant.

Welcome stepto and son: We have a few members with KZ200 and KZ250's...but not many! They are actually fairly rare bikes in North America...most have not survived. I'm looking forward to watching your bike transform:)

How long before your restriction is lifted on the size of the bike you ride? A restriction over here would save a lot of lives.
I have a lot of friends from australia and i ship a lot of parts there. Seems parts for Zeds are hard to find.
Welcome aboard and happy motoring. Roy

from my understanding of current laws, if you are under 30, or hold a full car licence, you are restriced for 6 months, when on your L plates. otherwise its 2 years.
theres some great bikes on this forum, hopefully i can study them for ideas.
i love working on old cars, but im wanting to try a bike.
anyone here also from vic with a bobber/chopper? im courous with the rego side of things, like what engineers cert needed etc

Post edited by: stepto and son, at: 2008/02/13 08:28

Just my $.02 but after looking at your bike I would go a different direction if it were mine. That little bugger could be made into a pretty nice cafe bike. Since the seat looks to need recovering anyway you could have it customized at the same time. Your bike is from the same engine family as the 305's so maybe pick up a topend from one of those for some more displacement (stock they were rated at 30 hp). With the square headlight used on that bike possibly find a little 1/4 fairing from an early GPZ550 or a repro from Maier. Fit a set of clubmans, update the suspension, add an ELR paint scheme and you would have one cool little bike. We never got many small bikes in the UJM style over here, they were all small cruisers and the 250's we did get were all single cylinder and were pretty gutless.

Post edited by: The Gringo, at: 2008/02/13 09:45

g,day steptoe and welcome guess what mate
i am about 30 klm from ya in bendig0
send me a pm maybe we can catch up one day and swap ideas
cheers

Welcome aboard mate, Oz from Traralgon here. You have definatly come to the right place. No shortage of fellow zedders with the right knowledge and advice (can walk you through anything). Look forward to seeing some progress pics. I agree with Gringo, cafe it up!!
Cheers Oz

Post edited by: Ozzyzed, at: 2008/02/14 05:21

I agree with Gringo. I would sport it up and not “Chop” it. That is a beautiful little bike. If you keep the aerodynamic drag down as much as you can she can be a nice little screamer. You may find out after it is too late, that she will loose quite a bit of valuable handling if you chop her. I would put a small sporty fearing on her and I would even leave the sporty original paint job. She looks beautiful as is just give her some TLC. I think that a fearing from a GPZ550 or smaller. Welcome aboard. Here is a link to the project which I am finishing up now.

kzrider.com/component/option,com_joomlab.../catid,11/id,169462/

thanks guys, plenty of thoughts there to think on
as i stated, im new to road bikes, whats the stuff that gringo mentioned? any pics of what a cafe would look like?
nothing is set firm with this bike yet, so any ideas will be noted
i even thought of giving it to the wife as a learner bike, and i will get something later on thats more my style (may chop the honda etc)
cheers
stepto

Take a look at the link I posted. I built a "Suto Cafe" out of a Choper.

Stepto, here is a picture of Richard's GPZ750 done in the ELR paint scheme.

This should give you some idea about the colors and graphics I'm talking about and you can also get an idea about the style of 1/4 fairing as well.

I'm curious about a couple of things about your bike. What model year is it? Also what size mag wheel did Kawasaki use on the front? Having disc brakes both front and rear on such a small bike is something Kawasaki almost never did for the US market. The 250 street bikes we got used a drum in the rear and a mechanical disc in the front. I really like that little bike you have, it could be the platform for a really cool little vintage sportbike.

Post edited by: The Gringo, at: 2008/02/14 12:16