'78 KZ1000 makeover

mtbspeedfreak wrote: Any rough ETA on a test ride?

Keep it up Adam!

Later? :laugh:

DoubleDub wrote:

mtbspeedfreak wrote: Any rough ETA on a test ride?

Keep it up Adam!

Later? :laugh:

Yeah, what he said!

I wish I had a good answer for you Mark. The truth is I'm missing very little to put the bike together. The engine needs less than $100 to be able to assemble the long block. I need to buy a chain and a new reg/rec unit and that'll set me back about $230 or so. $75 for bars and grips. I need to call Irishwill and get him to send me a set of handlebar risers. Custom front and rear brake lines ($150???). Rear tire @ $130 or so. No doubt lots of little odds and ends along the way. So approximately $685 in financial outlay to get the bike complete enough to run. I am limited on the time it takes to get the money together for the parts, as well as the assembly-disassembling- reassembling between mock ups, painting, final engine assembly and final bike assembly. And let us not forget Murphy's Law....... :whistle:

OK, The mail man brought the new passenger pegs, from an 08 GSXR 1K. They are shorter than the ZX10 passenger pegs regrettably, but the GSXR's under mount will serve the project better than the side mount style of the ZX parts. I'm sorry dear wife, your beautiful long legs will be a little more cramped, but its for the good of the project!


I also need to put the cases back into the frame to properly locate the outboard bearing support. One item I have been missing since I disassembled the bike is the lower right engine mount. I did not see the need to buy an entire motor mount kit for the one part, so like almost everything else, I elected to make one. I borrowed one from Supercharged (thanks Mike) as a template and marked one out on 1/8" CP2 titanium. CP2 is a commercially pure titanium that is easier to work with/machine versus a titanium alloy like 6AL4V. Even still, it certainly drilled a little harder than carbon steel, similar to stainless.



After I cut it out, I'll take the tig torch to a corner of the plate and see what it takes to bring a little of the oxidization color out of the material.

very cool. gotta love the mailman!

oh yeah.. body filler wouldn't hold an engine in place very well would it... :laugh:

I have no doubt somebody, somewhere has tried it Nelson If you had been standing here looking at the same thing I was, body filler wouldn't have even crossed your mind

thanks for that

i love the way u just go right to the max. no point doing things the way the normal people do it.
Motor mounts? aluminum u say? i think ti would be cooler! well Ti it is then. :laugh:
Way to go man.

r u using 1" bars ? what type of bend r u after? i'm taking off my black alum MX bars, if interested.
i also have some 1" risers avail.
pm me if interested.

Thank you Mark! Let me check in with irishwill first about the handlebar risers. He has them, but forgot to send me a set with my triples. I have been looking over lots of different bends, but I haven't settled on one to try yet. I wish I had a set from my YZF, but I only replace those when I bend them, so no good spares laying around :whistle:

Incidentally, cutting the titanium was SIGNIFIGANTLY more difficult than drilling it! I started with a jig saw, and that didn't do much. Then I tried a fresh hacksaw blade, and that was even less effective. I think I spent 5 minutes and made a 1/4" notch in the Ti plate OK, time to pull out the big guns! The plasma cutter made short work of cutting out the bracket, but it left a discoloration along the two edges I cut. Here is the rough bracket next to the template bracket I used. Ti on the left:



I will likely drill a .75" hole in the middle and scallop the edges in a bit between the perimeter mounting holes. We'll see.....

The UPS man brought another piece to the puzzel today. Many of you know I sacrificed a portion of my stock fuel tank to make the mold for the composite replica. I never planned to abandon my stock tank, and in fact I figured I would need to use it in the interum as I figured out how to make the composite version properly. So here and there I kept my eyes out for a decent modern donor tank for the fuel filler. Today, a '99 ZX9 fuel tank showed up



I had already made a card stock template to trace a circular line around the fuel filler with a 1.25" flange. I figured that should be plenty of room to graft onto the stock KZ tank. After a few minutes with a jigsaw, and a few more with a sanding disk I was left with this:



Now, we'll stick that with the stock tank for now, and move on to more important things

Too cool i want that to be my next project bought a kz tank just haven't squeezed the funds for a donor tank yet

ramtough_63 wrote: Too cool i want that to be my next project bought a kz tank just haven't squeezed the funds for a donor tank yet

I have been looking for a mid to late 90's Kawasaki tank because I prefer the 7 bolt pattern (no fake bolts), the "tee" lock cover and the flatter area all around the neck. This particular tank was listed for $110 shipped OBO on ebay. I offered $50, he countered $75, I countered $60, he declined it, then 30 minutes later he took it. I didn't get a key with mine, but a new OEM lockset with keys for the tank is $34 from Kawasakiparts.net. When I took the filler apart to remove the original lock, it definitely needed to be greased on the inside after 13 years :laugh:

Thats pretty cool ike a dumbaxx I sold one last summer for a buddy and we split 40.00 I would gladly give that for one now. I had never seen one done that way and it never occurred to me.