Woodhead's '77 KZ1000A resto mod attempt.

Hi all. New guy posting my project for all to witness the butchering of a classic motorcycle. If you are squeamish, please look away. Have a 1977 KZ1000A. It was sitting in a barn formally years then moved indoors about 6 years ago. I bought it from my old Chair Force, I mean Air Force, buddy I kept in touch with over the years. he passed away from cancer 2 years ago and before he died he told his wife he wanted his bikes to go to me first and if I didn't want them give them to his son. His son said "take em"! So I did. I got the Kiwi and a 1974 Suzuki water buffalo. So about a year ago I started resto modding it. I had been lurking on this site and other like forums to gather as much info I could before going to far to go back to square one and do just a restoration. this bike has 18,000 odd miles, my buddy was the second owner. The Suzy was another baser buddy who was the original owner and sold to him when he got sent to Alaska. The Suzy has 39,000 miles and a holed center piston that was welded by the weld shop on the air base. The Kawi was last titled in 1982. So enough to the pleasantry's. I will attempt to add some photos so all can "ooh" and "ahh" at the marvelous progress being made in my butcher shop in the mountains of East Tennessee. 

I guess you went in a different direction than I did!  I like it so far.  It looks like you're doing a well thought out build, so it should end up a cool bike.

Love where this is going   The disciples of originality will hate it 

Yea, I should have restored it but I really flipped over the resto mod thing. I grew up motocrossing and went to my first roadrace at Road America in 1981 and fell in love with roadracing. Watching Eddie and Freddy, Wes Cooley, Wayne Rainey was so cool. And Eddies big Kawi was awesomely cool. Now with the wide wheels and big brakes and beefy forks the old school super bikes look even better. So that was the path I took. If it doesn't work, then I haven't chopped it up to were I can't return it to stock again. I kept all the stock parts and cleaned and polished and painted them in case I need them again. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Wookie58 wrote:

Love where this is going 

 The disciples of originality will hate it 

Believe me, I'm this far and still on the fence if I did the right thing butchering this thing! I really think it will be super cool when it's finished. 

Trying figure out pic posting. Here's the front end. 

Here's how I painted the wheels. I'm afraid to mount tires because I don't want to scratch em!

Don't know if you have seen my build thread but I am "way past" returning to stock being an option with my 82 

Wookie58 wrote:

Don't know if you have seen my build thread but I am "way past" returning to stock being an option with my 82 

Yes I have seen it. And yes you are!! I love your fab work! I'm a retired aircraft sheetmetal mechanic and I love to fab parts. It's a lot harder now with out all the tools and tooling and (wink wink) available materials, if ya know what I mean. I never learned to weld though. Would like to. 

What front end are you using ? Often modern front ends are too short and can make the bike unstable (my RWU ZX9R forks are extended 75mm to get back to just under stock "J" with a 17" wheel) Zed1015 has a neat method of gaining 32mm on the USD units.

Front end is from a '12 ZX6. I'm kinda worrying about it being too short. I found some extenders that tread into the tops but I really can't drop them in the lower clamp any more than what I have em. The diameter gets smaller and they won't clamp tight. Not good!  That's why I need to get it on the floor and see how it's going to work. I'm a short guy so I was thinking that if it comes lower than stock it might be if it my smaller stature. We'll see. Then it's back to the drawing board. Seems like a lot of that!

I'm not a big guy either, if it's too short the geometry gets a bit too radical and you risk some interesting behaviour if she gets unsettled at speed. Zed's mod is internal and simply extends the travel of the forks so you don't run into the issue with the OD and the tree's