1978 Kawasaki KZ650 --- Restorification

The end of riding season is over. Now it is time to bring the bike inside and do stuff to it! :laugh:

First thing... Eliminate the rear fender. I think I'll do a nice write up for how to do this, convert it to PDF, and share it with the whole forum.

Anyways, here we go!

I want the tail light to be tucked right under the tail piece. I guess you could reuse the OEM tail light/license plate mount but IMO, it looks too bulky.


Just like that! Duct taped for now.




Cardboard templates.


They go on the tail piece mounts!


I will make a metal version of the cardboard soon....

Once that is done, I will work on the license plate mounts.

looks awesome, Might I make a suggestion on the petcock.

I had trouble with my 78 vacume activated (big POS honestly) but I decided after enough gas spilling out to replace with a gravity feed. Went with a Pingle for the price and what most all forums favor, Mine used the 44mm adapter plate and I did have to hone the petcock hole out a bit, which is fine if done before paint., www.pingelonline.com/powerflo.htm very good quality, flows good and looks clean, I did the 6000 series setup,6211-CH 3/8" NPT Chrome

I can't rely on the floats to stop gas all the time, so its nice to just turn it off.

Good luck!

All those pictures brings back the few memories of my 78 kz650, wish I hadn't gotten rid of it...you have me dying to get into a project, but I'm like 3+yrs away from getting anything...oh well...GOOD LUCK!!!

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationNo eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationInstead of getting a Pingel, I bought an inline fuel shut off valve. It will do for now


OK... Some of you guys may know that I've been searching for a Giuliari seat, right? Well, I got one!


All those hours of searching eBay was totally worth it. You have to type Z650 seat in the search bar for it to even show up! Crazy... But I won an it's mine.

Looks like you got that seat for a nice price. You also learned a valuable lesson about searching for parts. In most of the rest of the world that bike is known as a z650 not a kz650. So how much shipping are you paying from GB?

testarossa wrote: Looks like you got that seat for a nice price. You also learned a valuable lesson about searching for parts. In most of the rest of the world that bike is known as a z650 not a kz650. So how much shipping are you paying from GB?

I see... I am so lucky that i found it and only for $120!

Still waiting for a shipping quote.

I see why the seller istaking a bit long to ship the seat. She is packing it up as best as she can because she knows that the mailmen an airport people will likely throw it around and mistreat it. Besides, it's flying across the ocean and will probably go across the whole US so this is good! Will get a shipping quote tomorrow, I pay for t tomorrow, then it will ship on Monday!

I think I made some good progress today. I went to Lowe's and bought a 6" x 18" sheet of metal. 6" is the exact length I need for my fender eliminator. So I cut out 2 pieces of 1" x 6" then drilled some holes in them.


I marked them with a Sharpie for where to make the bends. Using the vice!


Done!




Mounted on the bike. Not tightened down yet.


I reused the OEM tail/license plate mount. I'll make a low profile one later with the left over metal.




You can see the pieces I just made. I think I should paint them black as Charlie did.


OEM piece is chunky.


The whole shot.



Like I said, I will ditch the OEM tail/license plate mount with a custom, low profile one. But I am happy with this so far!

Not bad for $5 worth of metal and one hour of my time. And maybe I can use the left over metal to fill in the gap under the seat where the metal fender used to be.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configuration

testarossa wrote: So how much shipping are you paying from GB?

I got my shipping quote today. It costs 40 GBP to ship a seat to USA. That equals $70. It's all paid for and it will ship tomorrow! I can't wait to get that seat!

And I also bought some side cover badges from Tania.


They're from a B1 though...

Flaming Chainsaws wrote: Hi fellow KZ Riders! Fairly new member here. Hoping to be an active member here.

Quick introduction. My name is Allen, 19 years old, works at Firestone Complete Auto Care. Live in Seatac, WA. Previous projects were on Suzuki's.

First one is my 1980 Suzuki GS450L. Day one.

1 year later then I sold it for dirt cheap.

Second project is a 1983 Suzuki GS1100E. Day one.

4 months later, sold it. Too big of a bike for me! I poop myself when I ride it!

If anyone is interested, here is my Youtube channel showing how I built these bikes.
www.youtube.com/user/SpidershotgunX?blend=8&ob=5

So I've only had experience on Suzuki's and have been riding new bikes for 2 years now. But I find that new bikes lack character. I like to wrench on bikes so yeah....

nice looking 1100

wireman wrote: nice looking 1100

Thanks! I worked really hard on that bike.

Anyways....

Here's some better pictures outside.








The tail light is sticking out a bit too much. I need to make another set of brackets. This time, about 1 cm shorter. And I'd like to use a thicker gauge.

In the pictures above, metal I used was 22 gauge. It's a bit flimsy. Perhaps I should try 16 gauge? 14 gauge? What do you think?

Oh right. Gonna go a bit off topic here.

I was finally able to get these two pieces together.

A metalflake 3/4 helmet which is fairly easy to get. But the JT Racing mask is near impossible to find!

The mask will be painted black....

I need to remake the fender eliminator brackets. 22 gauge is too flimsy so I'll try 14 gauge. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend....

A package from Europe? You know what that means! :laugh:

Got my side cover badges.


And my Giuliari seat!






My sister drew that stuff in the background lol...


I hope to install the seat tomorrow morning.