82 KZ750/GPZ-R1 project

Sandblasting is great for bigger items, but I find citric acid in water is really good for smaller and more delicate parts for corrosion and doesn't cause a lot of of other issues. You need to exercise caution with structural, brake and suspension components though because the acid can cause hydrogen embrittlement. This can be countered by baking for 4 hours at 400 degrees F.

With engine internals, parts that are carbon coated clean up really well if you soak them in a tub of carburettor cleaner for the required time. Doesn't cause damage and gets into difficult spots all on its own. Rubber parts like O rings don't like the stuff though. This stuff isn't very expensive if you buy by the gallon/ 5 litre.

I have done my own zinc plating at home which is great for small parts, but as others have said on this forum (I think), taking a box full of smalls to a professional plater is both time and cost effective. The result is also more durable.

I had access to an industrial sandblaster at work and blasted the frame on my 84 GPZ 750a myself and painted it after blanking off critical areas where the sand would do more harm than good..

Your results are looking good though.

Aloha guys.

It's been a while. And since I have no plan to work on anything today, thought I'll update some of my work. It's mostly small stuff, but something that are need to be done. Since the last post, engine is back in the bike. That will be the biggest change since the last time. I'm not trying to get the seat rail done. I need it to be about 1/2 inch or so lowered. Tried it with handheld torch with MAP gas, but it didn't create enough heat, so looking to get (rent or buy) propane tank with bigger torch like the weed burner. Anyway, this is how the bike sit now.

I still haven't take picture with Delkevic exhaust on, so stay tune. BTW, I bought their Black coated exhaust, but the coating is so thin, don't scrape with anything or it will get scratched. Mine have tons now..................Car headers are more durable with their coating.

And this is the area of seat rail I need to get bent back down. It's right behind that bracket that need to get bent. As I mentioned, I tried it with handheld torch, but guess not enough heat.

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Continued from previous post.

Now, as you can see, mine is 82 so came with oil cooler from the factory, so for me, it was much easier to install oil cooler, specially where I live don't have winter. So decided to get Zephyr oil cooler and I was lucky enough to score decent one with cooler line. Only thing I need is to install it, right? Wrong. I needed to get the line bent slightly to fit the frame. I'm not sure if you can see it, but line is not straight, but have slight curve to it. I still need to finess it a little more, but that's after I make some bracket to hold the oil cooler. Original is one bolt on top, two at the bottom and it was three row cooler. Zephyr one is more taller.

Also, I'm trying to convert my clutch line to hydraulic one ( I have 89 ZX-7 and that has a hyd. clutch and my arm didn't pump up while riding in the traffic so guess I'm getting lazy?) so got fairly decent masters. But I didn't like the looks of it (too glossy) so decided to blast it. Also, this masters didn't come with sight glass. In stead, it had some kind of plastic cap that was held in there with some kind of epoxy. As you can see, two on the left don't have any sight glass, one on the right have one.

Because of this, I bought this sight glass kit from Amazon. Will see how it holds. Supposed to work on anything with 8mm diameter, and test fit feels promising.

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Continued from previous post.

For now, last one to post is all the small items I'm currently working on. All have been blasted and painted. I still have some other stuff, but haven't finish yet, so there's np before and after pictures, so I'll leave at these for now.

Bracket that seen better days. However, after this was done, I found that my speedo need rebuild, and as of now, can't find anybody so thinking to install round bullet type gauges.

My stock RR that sits under the battery box. I probably go with SH775, but for now, I'm gonna go with this. I'm still collecting needed stuff for SH775 conversion.

After rattle can paint.

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Continued from previous post.

What I'm working on currently. Mind you, these were not done by me or would've been fixed long time ago. These gonna take some time before finish..................

That's it for now. I'll update as things progress. But don't hold your breath.

 

Those splices made me cringe. 
Keep up the good work. The end result will be awesome considering what you started with.

ThatGPzGuy post=858344Those splices made me cringe. 
Keep up the good work. The end result will be awesome considering what you started with.

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Tell me about it. When I took it  out from the box and lay it down on the table to see what I'm dealing with, my jaw just dropped. specially the hadlight connection! I'm not sure if you can see it on the first picture, but my red wire that goes to coil is jerry-rigged too. I had problem with the bike ever since I bought it. All of a sudden, one coil goes dead but that explained why.

Anyway, got myself cheap Kawasaki wire harness so I can cannibalize the line from the spare. Yes, I know I can use any wire(s) of the same gauge, but it's very hard and expensive to find grn/yel wire..................or any other color!

Check out this seller. He claims to have 140 colors.

www.ebay.com.au/str/4rcustoms

Thanks Mikaw. I think I saw him while I was looking for the wires. But the donor harness I got was something like $15 shipped to me, so can't beat the price. It also came from I think 98 Kawasaki and the lines all look good to me. I took off the wrapping, clean it (only because of the sticky stuff that was left on the wires because of the tape that was wrapped) and inspect all since I was wiping it down and no damaged wire, so should be all good.
 
I'm helping my neighbor's bike ( felt sorry for him as he keep getting ripped off by all the mechanic he saw or went to. Vacuum leak at the manifold kept the bike from idling correctly, and pilot screw on the carb was shut tight. NO. not mal-adjusted, but it was closed and was gorilla tight. And no one saw that or they just wanted to rip him off some more) so I left the whole thing at my work, so no work on the harness until next week when I go back to work.

After cleaning the donor harness.

Aloha guys,

I had some time today at work so took a break from wire harness (My brain was getting all tangled up looking at all those wires) and worked on master cylinders. I bought these from evilbay and the set of master that I bought didn't have sight glass but instead, it had plastic cap held by some kind of epoxy. So decided to try out the sight glass they have on both evilbay and Amazon. I bought mine from Amazon just in case I get some kind of bogus kit, but what I received looked promising. See my previous post for the actual sight and masters.

Master set I bought said it's from "84 - 86 Ninja GPz". doesn't state any model. But it looked good enough for rebuild so I bought the set. Came with both brake and clutch. These are the one without the sight glass. I also bought another brake master before the set. This one, according to seller is from "89 ZX1000) and did have sight glass but really cloudy. So I took off the plastic cap and worked to take the sight glass from the masters I have. Both the plastic cap and sight glass came off rather easy. Sight glass took little more effort, but wasn't anything difficult. I just had to work just a bit more then the plastic cap. 

Anyway, after I took off the cap and sight glass, I noticed the difference in the opening. one came with sight glass have o-ring and groove to it.

The one that had plastic cap didn't have o-ring or the groove.

Tried the kit sight glass on both, but the one that came with sight glass was bit too small of a opening, At that time, I didn't have caliper but came home and measure it and it was 16mm. The kit I bought is 18mmso obviously, it won't fit. However, the masters that came with the cap was perfect fit, so decided to install it and see if it actually work. I had to use bench vise (which is not recommended or many reason) to press in the sight glass. I thought we had C-clamp at my work, but couldn't find any. Vise had to do. I put piece of wood between vice and the master/sight glass but I still manage to get some scratches on the master. When all the work was done, I'm pretty satisfied with the end result.

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Continued from previous post.

As you can see from the front view it looks really good, but let's have a look from the side. This is brake master.

And this one is clutch.

I couldn't push in more on clutch since I was using the vise and didn't want to damage the master. Because of the way the reservoir and piston bore are constructed, brake was more easier but my initial plan was to use C-Clamp so oh well. 

Last but no least, covers. Nothing special.

For those of you want to tackle this type of work, make sure your sight glass is 18mm. My other master is 16mm and I can't find any that will fit. Currently, I'm searching for other option. It seems as 18mm is standard size and there's plenty of 18mm, no other sizes.

My harness is almost done. I'm going to simplify the lighting wires and use relays for the headlight. I'm going to use another relay through fuse box to operate after ignition electrical. I really don't like the idea of ignition switch handling all the electrical needs.

Aloha guys,

I had some time at work so decided to continue my wire harness R&R. Well, it's done now and waiting to get back on the bike. I also separated some wiring to ease my maintenance just in case, and did away with reserve lighting system and run a relay to control lights and some accessory wiring. Didn't want ignition switch to control the whole electrical system.

Tadah! Harness done. The kit I used are mostly from Cycle Terminal. Joe is great guy and I probably will buy more stuff from him if I ever need more stuff for electrical. Right now, I think I'm done with KZ but I also have and need to work on my other bike, which is 89' ZX-7.

I separated the headlight harness from the main one because I'll be running relay to control it. I had to solder the terminals because I didn't have right crimper to do the job. That goes for all my flag-style terminals. I just fold the crimping part with flat head screwdriver and/or plier and solder it. but did the job.

Before and after. I kept the plastic connector.

I had to solder most of the small terminals because the dies I got for my crimping tool wasn't good and bigger 16-14awg dies worked, smaller one was kinda loose and when you pull it, it came out. I sort it out later but for extra security, I solder most of my terminals after this.

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