New Member with a Basket Case!

Hi everyone. Just bought myself a '74 KZ400, which is a bit of a basket case.. but the initial price was right ($75). The bike's mostly intact, 'cept for the carbs and a few misc bits, but all that is in a box (whew!). The bike hasn't seen the road in about 20 yrs as per the last owner, and I largely suspect I'll be looking for a donor engine for this build, especially since the killer blow was a catastrophic failure of the Primary Chain, which blew out a large part of the side case and engine block (see attached pic).

Fortunately, all the other stuff is in relatively good condition. Plastic and emblems are all there, chrome is not significantly rusted, even the wiring harness looks fully intact. I'm looking forward to rebuilding this over the winter.

The big question I do have.. is that wrecked casing repairable? I've heard of others having done so on other bikes, but I was concerned over durability? (This concern of course completely ignores what may have also been wiped out by that flailing chain.)

Hope to learn lots from you folks, and maybe contribute a bit back to the board!

Regards,
Getmoresoon

Welcome to KZR! Good luck with your bike.

Instead of repairing the cases, I'd become one with the eBay Gods and explore what is for sale on eBay. Many of us on this site buy used parts on eBay for our bikes...I just looked on eBay and found a number of engine cases for KZ400 for sale...if you have to disassemble the motor anyway, you may be able to pick up all the necessary parts fairly inexpensively and then reassemble a complete motor. A word to the wise, if the bike didn't come with a genuine Kawasaki shop manual, buy it...don't buy a Haynes or any other aftermarket manual.

And welcome to KZR!

440 will bolt in also

Congrats on the score.

Well that's an interesting whole in the case... :blink:

And here I thought my two little holes I did (:blush: ) where bad.... :S

Wholly crapola, how the hell did they pull that one off....

Keep them images coming for we love pictures here...

OMR

Nebr_Rex wrote:

440 will bolt in also

this would be my first choice also. Just get one on eBay. I think it will save you a lot of money in the long run and time for sure.

Thanks guys. Yes, I figure eBay will play prominently in this rebuild. Absolutely agree on the real Kawi Shop manual... my main bike is an '86 Kawi Concours and my manual for that has proven invaluable for 8 years! (That and the COG group who've basically fully documented the Connie)

Question... What official manual covers the 74? I know my Connie manual covers from '86 upto 2001 (when I bought it) with addendums for the model years. Is the KZ400 manual written similarly?

Off to pick up my "prize" in a bit... more pics sure to follow.

Getmoresoon

This one

tinyurl.com/nog4f7

Hows it coming? Are all the baskets empty.

Slow progress.. petcock is degunked and rebuilt.. tank is degunked (20yr old fuel.. wow, that gets thick!) and most of the flaky rust is out... working the dents out before I acid bath the innards.

Still looking for a motor tho... Hoping to find another parts machine on the cheap!