1975 KZ 900 , ZRX Swingarm, 89 GSXR front end

Well...

Long time since last report. First the bike is still alive, I have not drug it down the street behind my pick-up truck. This is good.

I got it back from the shop in Reno (protective custody foster home for a year), and started it. Number 4 cylinder is not firing. I took the carbs off, and cleaned them. The needle and seat was stuck closed in #4. Put it back together, still no luck; but when the mains kick in it roars. I think the float level is too low on that carb, so the pilot is not getting fuel. more tinkering.

Meanwhile the Neighbor who owns the Gixxer I am restoring insisted on having the KZ paint "tuned'. The bike was solid orange, and graphically challenged.

"Gary" put some stripes on for me, and re-clear coated it. WOW !! The bike now has show quality paint. We got the title straightend out, so it is ready for the road.

I think I will end up with a new set of flatslides eventually but it is now riding season, which normally eats up the cash (track days and travel). Any way when it hits the mains at about half throttle it really sings, so this is a good sign.

I now owe Neighbor a ton of time, the paint is soooo nice it must have been expensive..but nobody is talking. The painter will not tell me, nor will neighbor. Gotta get more work done on the gixxer.

Here are a couple photo's of the paint.

A closer look at the new paint.

In one word. WOW!!!!!!!

Wow :ohmy: Beautiful!! The whole bike looks fantastic!!

the stripes really brought it all together.

now,

finish it up and go ride the d@mn thing ...

leon

531blackbanshee wrote: the stripes really brought it all together.

now,

finish it up and go ride the d@mn thing

...

leon

What he said.

I like the off center stripe. I even considered that for my bike.

wow that looks great, but then again it looked great before

tk11b40 wrote:

Well...

Long time since last report. First the bike is still alive, I have not drug it down the street behind my pick-up truck. This is good.

I got it back from the shop in Reno (protective custody foster home for a year), and started it. Number 4 cylinder is not firing. I took the carbs off, and cleaned them. The needle and seat was stuck closed in #4. Put it back together, still no luck; but when the mains kick in it roars. I think the float level is too low on that carb, so the pilot is not getting fuel. more tinkering.

Meanwhile the Neighbor who owns the Gixxer I am restoring insisted on having the KZ paint "tuned'. The bike was solid orange, and graphically challenged.

"Gary" put some stripes on for me, and re-clear coated it. WOW !! The bike now has show quality paint. We got the title straightend out, so it is ready for the road.

I think I will end up with a new set of flatslides eventually but it is now riding season, which normally eats up the cash (track days and travel). Any way when it hits the mains at about half throttle it really sings, so this is a good sign.

I now owe Neighbor a ton of time, the paint is soooo nice it must have been expensive..but nobody is talking. The painter will not tell me, nor will neighbor. Gotta get more work done on the gixxer.

Here are a couple photo's of the paint.

top shelf there!

Thank you all... Especially neighbor..who remains annonimus due to the nature of his wrk.

We call him S-2.

Your bike looks awesome!! This is exactly what I plan to do with my KZ900.....only more factory paint scheme. How hard was it to adapt ZRX swingarm and GSXR fork? I've read many posts here and seems relatively straight forward but any advice would be greatly appreciated.
AGAIN.......nice bike!!

Thank you for the compliment!!

The hardest part of installing the new suspension was lining up the rear swingarm, to the counter sprocket, and then to the front wheel.

Somewhere in the 20 something pages of this post is a pretty good explanation. Complete with dimensions. One of your chief concerns is the fact that Kawasaki had about a 2.5mm tolerance form centerline of front wheel to centerline of rear wheel. this comes into play, as the numbers I came up with may not match your bike.

I built a jig, and used it to line front and rear within .005".

The next issue will be frame and exhaust header clearance to the ground. There needs to be about 4 inches clearance between the bottom of the header, and the surface of the ground. You do not want to bottom out and slam the header.

Kossman made the steering stem for me, they are quite comfortable with this work, and know what they are doing. The new stem was then pressed into the GSXR triple clamp and the front end was good to go.

The swingarm aside from alignment is almost a bolt on deal. The bushings in the old KZ frame needed to be reamed a little to get the ZRX swingarm bolt through them, but not much. It then pretty much fit right in.

I have both a 99 ZRX and the KZ in my garage, I could measure some stuff if you need it. But first take the time to study this post from start to finish, I bet most if not all the info is already here. I tried to use the forum as a log of sorts.

There are a whole bunch of very supportive riders on this forum, and they have all run into the little hang ups you will find along the way.

The re-build was time consuming, but not all that hard.

Good luck, you have a great bike to start with.

Thanks for the info..........I've been following a few builds on this site for a while. I haven't pulled anything apart yet as I am slowly gathering parts ( swingarm / forks etc ) Right now I'm trying to get running properly........I'm planning on picking up new coils and DYNA S ignition next week from Z1 enterprises. I have a line on a 1990 gsxr 750 w/blown motor and was planning to use suspension parts from this bike as I see some of our other KZ owners have done. BUT I think in one of your posts you commented you switched from GSXR 750 to 1000 front end due to height?? Is this true??
Because I want to ride this bike as a commuter when done I don't want to run into any ground clearance issues.