A new member with a KZ400...

Hi all! I've been poking around these forums for a few months and figured it was time to join.

I started riding motorcycles *mumble* years ago, and have been carting a 1981 GPz550 around for 20+ years. There are boxes of spare parts in the basement and now that the shop is (almost) finished I decided it was time to get the GPz back on the road. Unfortunately she needs more work than I could expect to do this summer so I picked up a 1979 KZ400 to ride in the meantime. (That's the wee yellow beastie in my avatar picture.) When I got the 400 she ran pretty well but had chrome buckhorn bars and some kind of weird airbrushing on the tank. In the past couple months I've done the paint/bodywork, clubman bars, seat cover, shocks, headlight (H4), turn signals, and made a fender eliminator kit (with LED tail/brake/license plate lights) for the rear. The plan is to write up a couple of things here (at least the fender eliminator) in the forum in case anyone else is interested.

Frankly I missed turning wrenches. I used to do a lot of it years ago but it kind of fell off the radar. Anyway, maybe I can provide some useful answers here and there. Cheers!

Welcome. pics, need pics. :woohoo:
Steve

Yes, photos. the tiny avatar doesn't count. :laugh:

Thank you for the welcomes!

I need to take some more pictures: the one in the avatar has some goofy contrast. Honestly I think it's because the yellow is basically blinding in bright sunlight. :blink:

Maybe this will help for now. The aluminum piece on the left side cover was missing at purchase, so I made a template, cut a piece of flat aluminum sheet, and gave the piece a sort of faux brushed finish.

Yeah, a little detail will break it up a bit. It's not hacked up and looks good.
Steve

swest wrote: Yeah, a little detail will break it up a bit. It's not hacked up and looks good.
Steve

Thanks, Steve! I made a point of not doing anything that couldn't easily be reversed, so no cutting, no welding, etc. Everything is bolt-on and I kept the original parts.

I'm going to go with a set of wrapped headers and stubby chrome mufflers, but I didn't want to cut the stock exhaust. [That auction site] to the rescue: a spare set of headers arrived a few days later. The OE pipes will be cleaned up and put away.

That's a good looking bike and you seem to have done some good updates so far. Keep up the good work and keep posting pics!

diggerdanh wrote: That's a good looking bike and you seem to have done some good updates so far. Keep up the good work and keep posting pics!

Thanks, Dan! I'll get some more pics in here as soon as possible.

I'll add to the cacophony; nice looking bike.
Don't worry too much about those exhaust pipes; they aren't original.

Great little 400! I've had that same combo... gpz550 and Kz400, but the 400 is long gone. I really miss it for knocking around the city.

mark in Portugal wrote: I'll add to the cacophony; nice looking bike.

Thank you!

Don't worry too much about those exhaust pipes; they aren't original.

Respectfully I believe they are. There is no evidence of anyone changing anything and they look exactly like the ones in this '79 KZ400 B2 pic (from kz400.com):

loudhvx wrote: Great little 400! I've had that same combo... gpz550 and Kz400, but the 400 is long gone. I really miss it for knocking around the city.

I'm planning to hold on to both for now.

If I may ask, were you loudgpz on another forum?