KZ 900 TRANSFORMATION CONT. SEGMENT # 1

testarossa: on second look you just extended the original steering stop, right?

disregard the knobs on the tree issue...I just checked my forks and there they are! Should work out fine.

Scooter, what I did was weld an extended steering stop to the bottom of the stocker. The knobs on the lower triple clamp were already there. Your lower clamp should be made from aluminum, which can be welded with the proper equipment. My steering has lost about 1/3 of the original travel compaired to the stock KZ setup. The only time that the reduced steering will affet you is when manuvering in the garage and such. I checked it against the steering throw on my zx-10r and its the same.

first thing to do is make sure frame is straight before you start adding things to it

Plummen makes a good point scooter, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure nothing obvious is wrong before you pump a ton of time and material into modifying your frame. Get creative with a string line, a good tape measure and levels, and it will go along way toward piece of mind that you're not modifying and old, crashed frame

I'm still asking questions....

here is the next installment


vimeo.com/11025892

Thanks people!

Alright scooter;
The shock - you can dissasemble the spring from the shock by loosening the spanner nuts (top of spring). Then the spring seat should be able to slide up and off the shock piston. I do not believe you have either enough experience to dissasemble/reassemble the shock body or the tools to do so and recharge it, so please do not try You could paint the shock body, but you will need the threads for the spanner nuts clear of paint for proper threading. The adjustments on the side of the reservoir and the bottom of the shock are for High speed/Low speed compression dampening and rebound. I don't know which is which, I'll leave that up to you to figure out The shock does not care which direction it faces, so if you want to face it forward and can make it fit, go for it.

Shock frame mount - Now here I would measure the width of the dogbone pivot and the space between the existing bracket as well as the thickness of the bracket steel. I'm inclined to say that if you have to remove more than 10% of the bracket material then it would be wiser to reposition the brackets. If repositioning of the brackets is necessary, I would make them out of thicker stock. Perhapes someone with expereince using the stock center stand brackets will chime in. I had to remove mine entirely so I am not an educated source there. I sure hope that helps scooter :laugh:

Personally, I wouldn't use those tabs to mount the shock linkage. They look like 1/8" thick to me. I went with 1/4" steel on mine. However the stock tabs on my bike were 3/16". Possibly the difference between a KZ900 frame and a KZ1000 in my case. Don't assume that the tab that you pointed to is centered. Measure it.

I second what porchev914 says about the shock dissasembly. I'm not sure that you should try it unless you can afford to junk it. The nitrogen resivoir is the cannister that sticks off the the side, but it has a passage into the shock body. Therfore there is pressurised nitrogen in the shock body.

As for painting the shock, you have to decide the inteneded use for the bike. If its a trailer queen/show bike, then paint it. If you plan on riding the bike I wouldn't worry. Look at my picture again. You can't hardly see the thing when the bike is assembled. Also, the back tire will get that thing dirty as soon as you ride it.

Also, you may need a spring compressor to remove the spring. You have to remove the spring pressure from the bottom plate and the plate lifts up and slides off through the slot.

I was thinking about your linkage brackets on the bottom motor mount scooter. Testarossa has a good point, the OEM bracket was designed to simply support the bikes center stand, not carry the stress of the rear suspension. You could use the grinder to remove material and fit the the shock pivot, then Fab some 1/4" tabs to weld to the frame and to the existing tabs, thereby reinforcing the stock pieces. Before you get too carried away with a grinder, you may want to wait on fitting the shock pivot until you have the swingarm mounted. That way you can make certain the parts align.

test photo post

Hey thanks for the input I've been getting from you all!

Very helpful!

Upon looking closer at my center stand brackets or mounts I've got some more questions.

It appears that they are 1/4 inch in width.
BUT
they are not welded directly to the frame. As I hope to show in the photos below they are welded to a half collar that is (welded?) to the cross bar.

So if I don't use them and I want to fab and attach new ones do I want to just cut off the mounts and then weld new ones on to this collar thing? OR Should I remove the collar thing? I'm not sure how I would do that. BUT I'm not sure I want to trust that connection either...?

Check it out...












and just for fun in the last photo you can see that the weld is sloppy and actually flows into the weld of the motor mount on the other side of cross bar...??!! And I'm wondering if I can loose the center stand mount without also removing the weldmixed motor mount!!! Collateral Damage?

Well poop, that didn't turn out like I thought..