My Buddy's '76 KZ400 Rebuild!

This weekend was exciting, to say the least. To recap:
Someone reaches out on the discord channel my moto group uses, says a buddy of his is unable to finish this KZ400 project because of a recent health diagnosis. He gives a description of what's wrong with it along with the parts he had sourced to repair it and says he wants $500 for it, clean title in hand. My friend and roommate of 3 years got me into motorcycles but has thus far been unable to afford one himself, and since he's worked with me on my KZ I proposed that we take a look at it. Fast forward all of two days and we've talked to the guy and hammered out a time to drive 2 hours north to pick up the bike. Originally we were going to take my friend's parent's truck, but there was a miscommunication and it turned out to be this adorable little Ford Maverick with a 5 foot bed-- there's a little bit of pressure to go nab this thing before it gets listed to Marketplace and we lose our chance, the guy is a little antsy to get it out of his garage, so we resolve to reserve a Uhaul up in the destination city and carry it back down that way and drop off the truck in our city. Already off to a little bit of a rough start but we're pretty adaptable so we take it in stride.

I had huge doubts about the integrity of this sale before we got there, understandably, as a $500 project bike is already a kind of risky buy. The non-running state of the bike, what the guy had said was wrong with it and what he said he was including (especially that it had a title, which is honestly kind of hard to come by with bikes in this condition as far as I've run into around here) was enough to make me incredibly cautious. The pictures he provided were not that good, and while he said the tank and covers were in good condition we didn't get pictures of those at all. Idk how I convinced myself, let alone my friend, to go buy a bike we didn't even know the color of. The only line of trust we had was the fact that this bike had come our way by means of one of my mutual former moto buddies. I was nevertheless convinced that there would be, and as such kept waiting for, some horrible catch.

There was a charity marathon in the pickup in the pickup town so I had to navigate through a bunch of tight residential blocks whilst driving a Uhaul, the first truck I've driven (my daily is a subcompact so this was a pretty big shift). When we arrive we're met by the guy and his family, who are super kind and hang around while the guy walks us through the bike. To set the scene, I saw 4 or 5 motorcycles in that garage next to this pristine custom hot rod, and I can confidently assert that there was probably around 30-50k worth of bikes in there, absolutely gorgeous vintage and custom bikes (there was an ancient Harley that had been completely redone, a fully custom gorgeous CB400f, among others that I regrettably didn't get the chance to ask about). I do not think I've ever nerded out harder. As far as the KZ was concerned, we were walked through everything that was wrong. It's a pretty hefty project, but for everything that had to be done with the bike we were either told "and here's the brand new replacement for it," "I have something for that you can have," or "yeah I already fixed that." We walked out with the motorcycle and about 5 boxes of original and OEM replacement parts, full documentation (the guy gave us an ORIGINAL PARTS CATALOG, and two service manuals that he printed and BOUND, along with the full checklist of everything he was going to do to get the bike running again). While we were loading boxes I found the orignal toolkit and the pocket owner's manual that came with the bike in '76... I think those two alone were worth at least half of what we paid, from what I've seen. I've been looking for a good deal on that toolkit forever.

The color of the bike was brown, which I was not hoping for but was absolutely not disappointed by. Every picture of the brown KZ400 looks very drab and unassuming; the tank and body panels he gave us were not that. He told us over text that the tank had a dent in it somewhere but I for the life of me was unable to find it. When he gave my friend the tank he threw in a bottle of rust treatment. When he handed my friend the seat he said "oh looks like there's a little bit of sun fade" (the seat had absolutely no rips and was almost what it looked like when it came off the line) and he handed him a can of black varnish. When I say I have never met anyone with this much knowledge and care for vintage motos, it's an understatement tenfold. It was such a cool experience and probably the deal of this century. His family helped us lift the bike into the truck and tie it down, carry the boxes to our other friend's car (who we brought along as added muscle).

In the coming weeks we're gonna follow the notes and literature he gave us and hopefully finish what he started and was forced to give up. We're both super excited and a little bit honored in a way to carry that legacy. But anyways. Pics or it didn't happen-->

Looks like a sweet deal! There are still cool people out there.  Keep us posted on your progress.

The venerable KZ400 D3. I have its twin languishing in my garage. One of these days... 
These bikes are pretty simple machines and fun to ride. The Achilles heel is the NOLA front caliper seal.
 

ThatGPzGuy wrote:

The venerable KZ400 D3. I have its twin languishing in my garage. One of these days... 
These bikes are pretty simple machines and fun to ride. The Achilles heel is the NOLA front caliper seal.
 

Oh yeah I've already run into that one with my own KZ. I've been asking around those shops who make remanufactured brake parts for old bikes... it's like each of them just skipped the 74-79 KZ400 completely. We'll probably both end up having to do one of the fork/ caliper swaps in the near to mid future. Or find someone who's willing to do one custom, idk how difficult it is to manufacture those though so we'll see... 
In the meantime, the brakes still work tecnicamente and the caliper that came with my friend's bike looks alright. Always good to see other 400 survivors still exist! Is that the Mac exhaust on your KZ? 

Yes, Mac Exhaust. I was fortunate to have found a new exhaust on eBay not long after I bought the 400. It came with a ridiculously loud side cut-out exhaust.
I'm toying with an EX500 front brake swap. 

Here's a few pics of the progress thus far! Spring break at IU right now so after work we've gone up most days this week. 



Next go is to put oil in the engine and work on getting spark, send the carbs through an ultrasonic cleaner, and try to get combustion with an aux tank while we're working on cleaning out the tank. But we've confirmed all the electrics work (I'm gonna go through and replace a lot of the terminals and resoldering rougher looking wires)  which is neat! Oren religiously blips the horn anytime there's a dull moment which I find endearing. 

Looks like you are moving forward

The venerable KZ400 D3. I have its twin languishing in my garage. One of these days... 
These bikes are pretty simple machines and fun to ride. The Achilles heel is the NOLA front caliper seal.

possible fix. there was a topic about a harley seal fitting a kz400:
KZ400 front brake caliper. alternate piston seal o-ring: Kawasaki 43049-004 RING,PISTON SEAL = Harley-Davidson 44047-83.