Steiny's 750e cafe/brat

Hi all.
I've been lurking around this site for a while now so I thought I should post a few pics and bit of a story of my build.



I picked up my 1980 KZ750e a little over a year ago now and 12 months on it's nearing it's transformation from an unloved barn find to something that I can call my own creation.
When I bought it from a fella in Ballarat Australia, it was a non-runner but 100% complete. After I handed over the negotiated price of $500AUD my mate and I loaded it up into the ute and headed the 250km home.



Once home we immediately set about trying to fire it up. After a while we decided that it had a fueling issue.
The first items to come off the bike was the air box and carbs. As soon as I took the top caps of the carbs and saw that the diaphragms were split I knew I found the problem. A secondhand set from the local wreckers got it running but not before I gave them a good cleaning out. It may have been running at this stage but it was no where near to a tuned state, since the carbs are off a GSX750. It was able to be ridden around the back yard but only with minimal throttle as it would bog down under load. This could also be contributed to by a fualty coil that I'm yet to test.

I called on my local mechanic to give his opinion on the condition of the motor and decided to give it a set of new rings, cam chain, cam chain guides re-seat the valves and give the head good clean up....and that's when I found a problem.
At some point a spark plug in No two had come loose causing the plug hole to heat up and crack down the whole length of the thread. I only found this after soda blasting the head while cleaning it up. As this was meant to be a budget built I just plug welded the plug hole then drilled and tapped it again. It looks OK. I hope it is.



After I reassembled the engine I gave it a few cans of enamel, gloss black engine paint and started on the rest of the bike.

First job was to check all bearings, bolts, rubbers, etc etc and form a list of the things needing replacement or alteration.
As I wanted a Cafe'/brat/Bobber what ever sort of look I started cutting off every thing that wasn't needed. Such as the tabs holding the side covers on, battery cradle, electrical components and 6 inches off the rear of the frame.





A NOS rear guard from an XV750 Virago courtesy of eBay (where most of the new bolt ons came from) found it's way onto the arse end.
A set of clubman bars was next to arrive in the mail and once fitted it was very quickly realised that the guages and headlight needed to be lowered, so the new parts order was for a pair of headlight brackets and a set of small indicators.
I removed the idiot light/volt meter assembly and cut and shut the bracket so to move the two guages closer together. A temporary bracket was knocked up to hold new idiot lights for neutral and high beam and was mounted between the guages. I bolted the bracket to the underside of the top triple clamp and then made up some small tabs to hold the indicator lights and mounted them onto where the gauge bracket was originally.

More to come another day.

lookin good so far.





although i kinda feel like you left me hangin :laugh: .

can't wait to see whats next,

leon

Ok, part two..



I stripped the frame down and gave most parts a soda blast save a few things that were already polished.

I decided on a matte black frame and wheels but the final colour had sort of a blue hue to it. Almost a gum metal grey look. It was not what I was after but it turned out to be an expected surprise. I like it.

After I stripped the tank I used a flapper sander thing that you put in a hand held drill to clean it up and was impressed with the way the bare steel looked so I clear coated it. Now, I've got no idea as to how long the clear will keep to the tank or star to discolour but hey, I will sooner or later. As for now I think it looks cool and when I does start to get ugly I'll just have to work on it again.





I got rid of the standard switches and got some old style ones of flee-bay. they look the part and suite the older style grips and Odeon throttle I threw on. The only thing with them is that they are not suited to have the starter button wired through them, so I'll mount it under the seat near the new battery box when I get to it. Just to be different.

After I refit the motor, wheels and mounted the tank the project was starting to gather a bit of momentum.



The wiring was fun, not, even though I work on power lines I hate auto electrics. :lol:
There was a bit of lengthening and shortening of wires and renewing of plugs as the electrics were remounted under the seat, high in the frame, above where the battery will go.

So, where I am now is to make up a battery box, rebuild the brake system and rebuild/tune or buy a new set of carbys.
All good so far.





Cheers
Steiny.

very nice! thanks for the pics!

I haven't really got any news to update you with other than to say that I'm hangin' to get the bike back from the shop.
My mechanic mate has it in his shop, working on it when ever it get a bit quiet. It saves me money but it takes sooo looong to get any work done. :silly:
It's mostly finished apart from getting it running. It needs the carbs rebuilt and a new pair of coils AFAIK.
I need to work on making a better looking seat as I had to majorly redesign the seat myself. I lost all faith in the upholsterer as his attempt was absolutely pathetic. :sick: :lol:

OK then, it's been a while so I should update this thread.

I started off writing a 1000 word essay on how long I had to wait and how much stuffing around my mechanic mate gave me to get the bike ready to ride down to Phillip Island for the World Superbikes here at but I thought why bore you all with that crap so I deleted it. :huh:
Anyway, lets just say that after 3 months it came down to 3 days to get it home, get it registered and get down to Phillip Island.





So with a grand total of 30kms on the clock since the build I set off with a mate for the 500km ride to the Island. Apart from some tuning issues due to the larger carbs being used it rode very well. Even more fun than my old Daytona T595, well, at cruising speeds at least.
Apart from the torrential rain on the way home all was good and it didn't miss a beat.



After putting a few more miles on the bike since the first trip my speedo ceased so I took the opportunity to fit new instruments and headlight to neaten up the front end.

From this...



To this....





More to come, cheers.