Nice to be here...

I'm new here, so I figured I'd introduce myself. I'm 25, I work as a wheel alignment tech at a local tire shop in upstate New York, and I have been riding for about three years now on various old Jap bikes. I learned to ride on a 1981 Kawi CSR305 before moving up to a 1980 Suzuki GS750 (which I love to death) that is still my daily rider. The reason I joined this forum, though, is that I recently bought a well-taken-care-of 1974 Kawasaki Z1 from a guy who comes into my job. He had it since 1976 (33k miles) and was heart-broken to see it go, but he wanted it to go to a good home. I am going to need some tips for getting it running properly (mostly in the carb department - the jetting is all wrong), so I'll be posting some images and questions in the near future. I also just bought my brother's KZ440 for my girlfriend to start learning how to ride. My brother is helping me with the work on the Z1, but I am not half the mechanic he is (he has about 4 bobber/chopper/cafe/whatever projects going on with old XS's and KZ's), but he doesn't know the Z1's the way a lot of people on here probably do. So with that said, thanks for this website, and thanks in advance for everyone's time and consideration!

Will

PS - sorry for the crappy pic. It was taken with my girlfriend's phone.

NOTE- cheesy stickers have since been removed.

welcome to z-jungle!ive got a soft spot for z1s,my 1st street bike was a 75 z1 i inherited 30 years ago when i was 13-14.the 55 chevy of motorcycles!

welcome to to the wonderful world of kz's it's a fun place to be sometimes. by the way what was wrong with the stickers i'm sure they had a story to tell or least some blemishes that they covered. good looking first zed nice job looks like a good ride or it will be and for god sakes don't let any body near that bike with a torch or a zip saw there are way to many guy's watching to much t.v latly

i just noticed that somebody used rear mastercylinder and mount of a 76 900 ltd on your frame,no big deal but whats the number on steering head of frame? i wonder if somebody wrecked a 900 ltd and grafted some of the parts onto z1 frame frontend is also newer and has kz non ltd wire wheels.

timebomb33 wrote:

welcome to to the wonderful world of kz's it's a fun place to be sometimes. by the way what was wrong with the stickers i'm sure they had a story to tell or least some blemishes that they covered. good looking first zed nice job looks like a good ride or it will be and for god sakes don't let any body near that bike with a torch or a zip saw there are way to many guy's watching to much t.v latly

what are you trying to say about torches and saws? :laugh:

your adding things not taking them away. :blush: :blink: :silly: :woohoo:

welcome ...great old school kawi lines on that one....my vote is to keep it old school ....nice......where in upstate...i spent 8-9 yrs around all over..?????always wanted to ride a 900 around the city for a day ...ride all the bridges and such...welcome....craig

beautiful bike. If you take care of it, it will take care of you. That is a great bike you have there, and it sounds like it went to a good home. Welcome to KZR!

Thanks to everyone for your responses!

I decided to remove the stickers simply because, as much as I wanted to keep the bike how the former owner had it, they were not me. He wanted it to look like a race bike, but I'm not a racer kind of guy. And besides -there were about 5 stickers covering up the beautiful chrome case covers, so with every sticker I took off, the bike looked better and better to me. I might end up leaving the hand-painted Z-1 on the tank, though.

I am sure as hell not going to try to chop this thing up. I went to the guy's house to look at it in the fall just to see it. I knew it would be awesome - he's got a Lotus Elise and a pretty cool souped up Mustang (both of which he brings to me religiously to do alignments on) and he keeps his stuff immaculate. BUT, i didn't have the money at the time...
I lucked out when he told me he'd keep it for me and let me save up over the winter. :woohoo:
How awesome is that?? I consider myself very lucky.

I already bought an OEM taillight for $35 on eBay to replace the terrible aftermarket one that's on it. I'm also going to go back to original style signals/stalks, adding the 2 in the front which had been removed. As for the mods, I'll make a list of everything I can remember at the moment that is on the bike:

-Stock 903cc engine
-Stock carbs (w/ incorrect jets!)
-Kerker 4-into-1 exhaust
-Lowered seat
-Crappy Emgo pods (the next things to go)
-Larger diameter front forks w/ triple trees
-Aftermarket shocks (can't ID...?)
-Aftermarket fork brace
-Front brakes converted to double disc
-Rear converted to single disc
-Dyna (3?) ignition
-Oil cooler
-Frame gusseting (steel plate, tubes, etc.)
-Aftermarket steering damper
-Cafe-ish Fairing
-Aftermarket headlight bracket
-Drag bars
-Generic Suzuki mirrors

That's about it. As far as I know, the forks and master cylinder/brake/wheel setups were all new parts from Kawasaki when the guy got them. I'm guessing that he spared no expense slapping mods on this sucker. He also gave me a work order receipt dated in 1997 for 4 new exhaust valves, 1 intake valve, oil change and tune-up, and it lists the mileage at just 1100 miles fewer than what the bike has now.

My first orders of business are to fix the carb jetting, replace the pod filters, and replace the petcock with a Pingel dual output.

Stinkin fuel delivery problems - I just want to ride the damn thing!

Welcome aboard, Will. Great looking bike and a good story to go with it. You got the right attitude.