82 KZ 1000 LTD Chopper

Follow along on my project as I try to turn my first classic bike into a mostly, bobber customathingy. This will start out slow as I am still riding almost daily, weather permitting. This is the way I brought it home a couple months ago except the PO had some mini apes on it that i believe he said came off a Honda Rebel? any way this is the way I have been riding it. Long term plans are to strip it, clean it all up, hard tail it and just make it look cool.




Monday I got my Uni filters to replace the cheap Emgo filters that are blocking the air flow, errr I mean filtering the air. After installing those and riding it for a day, holy s**t. Do they wake up the motor. Unfortunately they also lean it out to much to ride. Which I didn't think would be the case. I didn't realize just how bad the Emgo filters suck. The PO told me it had been re jetted for the filters but I'm guessing other wise now. So another order was placed for the Dyno jet kit which should arrive tomorrow. So back on go the air restrictors, I mean filters.

Tonight the bug bit me to get started. So the first order of business was to remove the saddle bags, rear fender, rear blinkers, and the grab bar the PO had installed. So far so good. Saddle bags gone! Check. Rear grab bar gone! Check. Rear fender gone! Check. Now I had to figure out how to mount my tail light. Knowing this is just temporary so I can keep riding it, I had a scrap piece of metal left over from the speedo bracket I had to make. (Whole nother story). The rear tail section has 2 bolt holes at the very rear loop to hold the fender on. So I used those as a starting point for my bracket. I held the metal there while I used my sharpie to mark the holes. Then I used the tail light and its rubber spacer to mark the holes for mounting it. Once I had the general shape marked onto the steel I discovered that my jigsaw was out of blades

What's a guy to do when you want to ride the next day? Well I used my saws all. Now this isn't the prettiest bracket but it serves the purpose for now.


After cutting and grinding I dug through my small box of bolts and lucked into 2 bolts and nylock nuts that were just right. I mounted the bracket up, "hell yeah" I says to myself. Not bad for what I had to work with. Next step. Mount the light. What's that? Well s**t. I forgot to drill a hole to run the wires through. Ok no biggie. Drill a hole with it on the bike, easy enough.Well what happens when you drill sheet metal with a 3/8 bit and no pilot hole. That's right the bit grabs and forces the drill down right into the tire.

Ok deep breath. No harm done. That tire will be fine with a small gouge out of it. So now I'm to the point of mounting the light and I've got an extra 8 inches of wire there to hide. That's not fun lets just cut it off and splice it back together. Yeah that's it. Done. Now I wired up the tail light and figured I better check it to make sure we are good. Call for son to help. Son I says, step on the brake pedal to make sure it works. Ok contact Not a blink! Ok the next 20 minutes was spent diagnosing what turned out to be blown fuses, yes 2 fuses. I had no brake, running light, neutral light or starter? WTF did I do? Anyway, I replaced those and we are good. Shot the bracket with some paint. Mounted the light and all is good. Whats that? oh I should put the seat down? oh no I wont. It hits the light. Dam it. Ok no biggie just drill a second set of holes. So in the end it worked and thats all I got to say about that. Here is the pile of leftovers.

As you may be able to tell things don't always go as planned for me. Sometimes my fault, sometimes not. But if you stick around for this I'm sure it will be entertaining to say the least.

Plans for tomorrow eve are to remove the front blinkers and anything else I decide will clean it up. Tune in!

Well. As I said I wondered out to the garage this eve to pull more parts off the bike. Here is the front when I started.






First to come off was the bag. It's a nice heavy leather bag so it setting aside. Maybe get re used. Next the blinkers. No big deal. The bracket is held on by 2 bolt that hold the distribution valve for the front brakes. That cam off easy. Opened up the headlight and un hooked the wires and pulled them out. Easy breezy. Now reinstall the bolt for the brake distribution block and..........snap. Broken screw. I guess the thickness of the light bracket had kept the screws from bottoming out. Dang it. Ok. Still 1 screw holding it on nice and tight. I'll deal with the broken one later.

With the front end cinched up I directed my attention toward the exhaust that I been wanting to cut off but was afraid it would be to loud. I remembered today that the basket of spare parts that came with the bike has a baffle in it. If it gets to loud ill just install a section of that. Now someone might complain that I'm cutting up a perfectly good V&H exhaust. What you can see in any pics is the megaphone has a great big spot on the side where it looks like it got paint on it, so they sanded or steel wooled it until the chrome was shot. So had I not cut it off it would be getting replaced at some point down the road anyway.
Before








And after






Not that this has any thing to do with making this a bobber but its on my list of wants. I recorded about 10 seconds of video, before and after cutting the pipe if anyone wants to hear it I will email them to you. Now, I was pleasantly surprised that its really not that much louder. Gave it a nice low rumble at idle, and a little more rap when zinging the throttle. Sounds good in the garage. We'll see how it does out on the road. That was really the first hr on the bike and I forgot to take a picture of the parts pile. But it wasn't really very big tonight.

I did decide to start on a little project that I been wanting to try to see if I will incorporate into the final project. It's not done quite yet so I'm going to keep it a secret until the next update. Hopefully it works out. I think it super cool and not as common anymore. Well see how it goes.

Laters!

If anyone wants to hear the difference in the pipe hear is the thread with it in there. Exhaust note

Ok day 3 under wrap. Not a whole lot to do tonight, a after 2 days out in the heat of the garage I kept it simple. Last night I mentioned a mod I had started but didn't finish, so tonight I wrapped it up so I could ride again. Now I know it's not the prettiest thing but this is just the test phase. So far so good. Went for about 30 mile ride and all is well. Worked decent, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I still have some cutting and welding to do to finish it but I'm going to make sure that I def like it. So far it's fun to ride. Slow sharp turns are kind of tricky but I think I'll get it worked out. I know I'm not the first to do this but they are not very common around here.

Here is where I was last night.




And after I finished tonight.




I goofed and cut the bar about an 1 1/2 to short. The end of my grip doesn't go to the end of the bar. Doesn't effect shifting or anything, Just a annoyance to me. I started to spray it black but figured since this is just a mock up I'm not worried about it. The shifter is still on there until I'm absolutely sure that I'm going to stick with it, the I will cut it off and permanently weld it.

Placed an order for a big item today. I'll show you that in a couple weeks when I get it. Also when I put the drag bars on it the mirrors were useless. I had left the one on there just to avoid grief from the cops but took it off last night. I have a concave bar end mirror on the way. Well that's about it for tonight. Not sure what the next order of business will be. Oh, I'm thinking of putting in one of those tube sights in my tank instead of a fuel gauge. Anyone done one or have one?

Laters!

Well not much to update. Kinda slow this weekend. I managed to get the carbs rebuilt with the dynojet kit. Pretty easy process, after I figured out how to get the choke rod apart.




Not really much to show but here they are

That shifter's pretty cool!

thanks DesertKZ. It works but its not done yet. I wanted to make sure I like it before I do anymore welding and cut the shifter off. Didnt take as long as I thought to get used to either..

Well after a little fiasco which resulted in a tank swap. I am back up and running. She screams now with the Dynojet kit and their recommended settings on the needle seem to be spot on. Bad news is the clutch is slipping in first and second when i really get on it. I guess the cheap Emgo pods had it so bogged down that i never had a problem with it slipping. Motor is running strong with no bogs or backfiring. I'm guessing they prob test their bikes at an adjusted altitude to be at sea level, and I'm at 800 ft where I live so it worked out good. Bike project on hold for a day while I build a lift table to work on it. To be continued........

Just be sure that the weight of that shifter doesn't cause it to down shift when you hit a good sized bump.

Good point DJ, but Ive decided I'm going to redo the mounting on the lever so it will be directly over the shaft. No worrys about bumps then and should shorten the throw just slightly.

Having that much leverage on the shaft could still cause it to shift. I've seen lots of setups using a linkage to isolate the shifter arm from the spline shaft.