Big Mikey's 1974 Kawasaki Z1-A

Hi all -

I just finished this build in time for winter, figured I might as well post up some photos somewhere.
A bit of background, my dad got this bike from a coworker of his sometime in the late 70's/early 80's. However it was in boxes and nothing was assembled. It sat in my parent's garage for about 20+ years. When I was about 13 we assembled it for the first time, but were not able to get it running (for more than a few seconds). After that it sat in my parent's garage for another 10+ years.

3 years ago I brought the bike from my parent's house to my house, so that I can get back going on it. I decided to start from scratch as I was finding too many issues to make it an easy start-up (example: engine case was cracked). This past weekend I had a chance to fire it up, synch the carbs and finish assembling it.
I want to thank Leon for providing his services for the triple tree, swingarm pivot and front sprocket.

Some more...

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There's a few more photos I will upload at another time...

Very Nice!

Awesome engine paint work.

One little nit-pick - get better rear shocks - those ones are too wimpy for anything bigger than a KZ650.....from experience.....

Dude with the crazy prices of Z1's nowadays you could sold that bike and bought kz900 rat bike to start with. Heck I would have traded you this 76 and some cash your way for that bike ! If you want to sell the stock parts please let me know

Kray -Z,
Thanks for the comments, I did change to different shocks... when I post those photos, you should see. But I may change them again in the near future.

GregZ,
I definitely hear you out. I was definitely considering keeping it a stock restore. But there were issues with the bike that made me go otherwise. For instance, the bike was not numbers matching. There was already damage to the frame from being dropped in the past, etc. Either case, I decided to go the path I did.
I do have some stock parts I will sell in the future, but they are not in good shape.

I'm new to this forum and am having an issue with uploading photos. So please bear with me, and have some patience if my posts look out of whack.

The photos attached to this post are showing the rear-set mounts I made, rear passenger pegs, as well as frame bracing and new mounts for oil breather/rear master cylinder.

Photos attached show some more frame bracing, a steering damper mount and some paint work I did:

Carb disassembly/assembly
Engine re-assembly (had crank welded, bored cylinders 1mm over, undercut 2nd gear, few other odds and ends)

Parts back from powdercoating - rest of the bike being put back together...

Final post.... (again sorry for a sloppy job posting all of this)
Bike finally complete (for now).

Nice job! What did you use for the swingarm? What modifications to it besides the shock mounts?