cinderella pc. 79 kz750 chop

well..... this is my kawasaki kz750 project. i guess its gone through a pretty major transformation.

ive been into choppers for probably 10+ years now. im not embarrassed to say none whatsoever that when the discovery channel started doing biker build off shows it really fucked me up pretty good. now i know alot of uber cool chopperheads get pissed bla bla bla about stuff like that for tons of reasons. some think it was the onflow of a ton of noobs who didnt know shit and the whole world off chopper went down hill. i for one think that anyone who is truly into motorcycles and honestly hold it near and dear can think however they want but i myself think the only thing better than choppers .......is more choppers. if you have bad taste it truly will show no matter what. its hard to fake the funk. the biker build off show really showed me that dudes who want to build rad as fuck bikes can do it with minimal tools right in their own garage and that is why i appreciate it.

so i had this vision of the ultimate chopper i wanted with all the dopest shit i could buy with as many custom parts on it that i could build. i guess reality hit me and i realized how much a shovel and a tranny alone would cost and realizing it probably was unattainable for me to build my ultimate dream bike i kinda let alot of years go by without a bike. a few of my buddys had some jap bikes that were ratty as fuck with little to no money in them and it opened my eyes. you dont really need to have a $15k build to have a bike. you can do it affordably. maybe even one day go on to bigger and better things but......why miss out on all the fun because your waiting on that dream bike? so a buddy of mine found this kz750 on craigslist about 5 miles from my house. i picked it up for 800 bucks. it had a couple of things done to it like the tail end was chopped off, the seat cut down, and some drag bars. after having it for about a week i had a buddy of mine machine an axle to put a 21 on it, put some flipped dirt bike bars on it, made and exhaust, taglight, spray painted the tank with some lace and she sat like this.

heres what she looked like at the very the end of this style after i took off the guages and moved the headlight up a bit.


i rode the shit out of like this for 2 or 3 summers. even rode it all the way to the smokeout from ohio. it was alot of fun like that and i rode it pretty hard sometimes. i had helped a few buddys make some custom parts for their bikes and what really kept me from diving into this bike and chopping it was....i really always thought the motors were uglier than shit. they just didnt seem doable like xs650s and still look cool. even further....i hadnt really seen anybody build one that was cool enough looking to make me think i could pull it off. after alot of thinking i just figure rather than be scared of doing it i should take it more like a challenge. it would be a challenge to make this ugly fucker look cool. i knew the 750 was quick but no matter how fast a turd can roll....its still a fucking turd.
at the tail end of the winter i dove into this shit hard. i have a buddy, bob, who is a machineist and he was ready to make me whatever i needed to help me with this project. i had bob make me a headtube for the bike, yea....im an old bmxer so i call it a headtube. thats really what i knew was going to be the first difficult task to take on. while bob was making that i order a universal hard tail kit from xstravis on xs650.com. he offered a quality kit and i was convince i could make it work. i took my bike and figure out how much lower i wanted it to sit verses how it sat now and how much longer i wanted it to be. i made a jig that utilized the motor mounting points.

the jig was crude but it did the trick. im confident it was pretty damn perfect. as i did a side, i would cut away from the frame as i went. i took a big chance in bringing my top tube down alot so it didnt set at a super steep angle. the way i did this was i cut my headtube in about half and tacked a new tube directly to it. i used a piece of angle iron to cradle that tube directly back to dead center between the dropouts.

and i just kept cutting more away of the frame. i always thought one of the ugliest things about the kz750 was its lack of a seat mast tube. the xs650s have them and it makes those bikes look alot more visually appealing. not this fucker. i decided to make my own and i had to bend the tube around the motor to do it.

and i just kept cutting more and more away of the stock frame. i also wanted to make as many things on this frame appear to be vintange HD as possible so i wanted to mimmick a wishbone frame. so i bent myself up some tubes that resemble a wishbone. the tricky part of it was i needed to have the wishbone alot lower that a harley frame typically is so my exaust ports cleared. so after some tricky measuring. this is how it ended up.

and i just kept on cutting away the frame until the only thing that was left of the original was a 2 inch section where the lower front motor mount originally was. the frame entirely cut away.

so since i was on a roll and everything was turning out well, it was time to turn the task onto the headtube and i knew that was going to be a tricky one to figure out. i had my buddys come over and help me figure out the angle i needed that headtube to be on to work. i basically jacked the bike up and got the frame level, held the fork with the wheel i wanted to use next to it and used an angle finder to find the angle i needed. yes....thats really what was going on here. that is also the tank i wanted to use. a honda 50 trails i think its called from the early 70's. small.

heres where shit gets a little funny. throughout all of this i knew i couldnt afford to buy an actual jig to do this shit the right way so i gave it alot of thought and came up with the best ideas i could and make do. i use a plumb bob to mark a line on the ground directly off the top tube when everything was level. i did the same directly dead center of the rear dropouts and chalked a line connecting the two. i then took a piece of angle iron and cradled the headtube at the correct angle i needed in the fishmouthed top tube. some straight egyptian shit but im sure people have done sketchier. this seemed to work.

i just then kept making the pieces i needed to make the frame look very vintage v-twin.

now i was pretty confident that the cross members and a few other areas would hold up to mig welding but anything that i knew needed to be super strong was just tacked with a mig and tig welded by a friend of mine. to finish the frame up before i took it to be tigged i riveted on a s&m bikes badge to show my roots.

i split my gas tank in two to remove the ugly ass rib that it came with from stamping. whatever the bike was it came from it must have had a giant top tube so i had to make my own tunnel to get it to sit frisco style. i also made bungs to weld into my top tube so there was no visible mounting points on the tank. i think it makes it look clean but also even more cartoonish than it already is. plus it made more room for fuel which i would need because its so small.

heres a pic of it mounted on the frame.

then i turned to my ugly -4 under dna springer fork. my buddy bob built the early 80s honda dirtbike 23 inch wheel with a wargasser hug and custom cut stainless spokes and there was no way i was going to take away from its radness by having that ugly ass fork attached to it. so bob machined the legs and we bent them up to mimmick a clean hernandez fork. yea.....the fork is notoriously shit. but now its a polished turd. bob also machined some sweet ribbed brass spacers.

bob also machined me some bungs to make my dirtbike bars riserless.

and there was my rolling chassis. things were really cruising along.

next i made a small sissybar, mounted a ledsled customs ribbed fender, a sullys pleated seat with biltwell hardware.

another thing that was funny about the motor on this bike is that it originally has 6 separate motor mounts. i decided that the were too much of a giant eyesore and some of them had to go. also when i decided to lower that top i made it damn near impossible to take the motor in and out with any motor mount in there. to fix the problem i made a removable motor mount, also with hidden bungs and i ustilized more bungs so that i could use a couple of cam cover bolts in my mount. heres what i came up with.

i decided i wanted to do something i never seen before with the taillights. bob machined me some bullets and i utilized lenses and rings from a set of lights and i welded it all up so it looks like the lights are pierced by the sissybar. the lower part of the leg is hollow and the wiring is internal.

i made a coffin style wiring box/fake oil tank that also doubles as an area to stick all the shit you dont want to fall out of your pockets while your riding. this pic is before i cut a lid in the top and cleaned it up.

oil tank mounted. ignition switch mounted to the oil tank. master cyclinder mounted, made a i-beam style brake arm. heres a pic of my exhaust i made.

i threw some velocity stacks on too. heres a pic of my exhaust going under the carbs. also made an i-beam style toe shifter on this side. bob machined the brass pegs.

here is my version of a dual caliper brake mount. made an i-beam style brake arm. i still need to get custom lines cut so im just running one caliper at the moment in this pic.

so i guess this pic is when i put a bunch of parts on right after i got them chromed. alot of people seemed to think chrome is too loud or flashy. if your making custom parts and not getting them chromed....youre selling yourself short and not making your parts look the best they can. dont be skeered. do it.

so thats my project. been riding the shit out of it and working out the bugs as i go. im sure theres a ton of stuff i left out of my description and i know about a million details of individual parts i made. i of course want to make sure its 100% ready to have paint added to it over the winter with no issues that should have been taken care of before paint. thanks to bob, joe and judd for your help. lets do some miles.

I love the level of detail. How did you make those I-beam shifter/brake stay? Can you buy I-beam stock?

nitrokeeb wrote: I love the level of detail. How did you make those I-beam shifter/brake stay? Can you buy I-beam stock?

It's basically all just starts out as flat steel. Just figuring out the mounting points which are usually a threaded bung or countersunk bung then connected with a piece of flat steel with measured out lightening holes. Then you make a pattern for each top and bottom piece and finalize it by welding. Old trick a lot of hot rodders use for motor mounts and such.

Nice chop!

VERY NICE!! Love it!!
Great Workmanship!
Pic after Paint??
Regards
TennesseeZ Ed

Very nice work.
Love it!

ed spangler wrote: VERY NICE!! Love it!!
Great Workmanship!
Pic after Paint??
Regards
TennesseeZ Ed

thanks. yea...planning on having it painted over the winter. just fine tuning everything and making sure its finalized. i would hate to rush into painting it and figure out down the road i wanted to weld some random tab somewhere.

That bike rules! Everything about it looks perfect.

a couple of good pics that recently popped up on chop cult.

pc = double entendre