KZ100ST 1979

Last Fall I bought a real nice KZ1000ST.

I have neglected it since I rode it home.

What is the benifit to this KZ shaftie?

Any general comments from anyone with experience with this bike?

All the usual shaft qualitys, lack of oil on the wheel ect. All the usual shaft complaints, rear end rises under power, heavyweight ect.
My personal opinion is the ST is the best Kawasaki ever made. The most heavy duty made, everything is heavier than the chain model. Best looking, looks are in the eye of the beholder and I always liked the MKII styling and the shaft is along the same lines. 1979-80 was the best KZ1000 engine ever for durability. Seating position was just right on the ST with it's slightly lower bars than the MKII. I could go on and on. In 1981 they went to the KZ1100 shaft and it was nowhere close to the 1000ST in being heavy duty and good looking. The main pitfall to the ST is everything is unique to the model and hard to buy new parts. Lots of used junk out there, but most is just that. The other pitfall is nearly every one of the STs was bought by someone who immediately added all the touring crap to it, so several original parts are always missing, grab rail ect. I think in all the ones I've seen on ebay in recent years I can only remember one that actually had the grab bar intact. With mine that makes two at least in the world.

Pretty much what Ron said, there is a fairly nice restorable one on eBay right now that $500. The engine has a lot more interchangeable parts than the rest of the bike.

Where are you located?

I find the earlier KZs and Z1s smallish and uncomfortable for longer rides... the ST (I have both an finish 79 and and 80 in project form) has a stouter frame and rides much better with a great riding position. I would prefer to ride my ST to my 2001 Bandit 1200 for comfort and smoothness. The 79 and 80 even have quite a few parts differences so if you get a shafty, be prepared to hunt for parts. I am now pretty well set up with spares, if needed as I have kept my eye open for spare parts on eBay. The main gripe I have is the paint. Most all the 79 and 80 shafties have ruined clearcoat so you will see a lot of Krylon black. When I repainted mine, I decided to not use the original color scheme as the bikes don't hold great restoration value and I wasn't keen for the original colors. The red/burgundy was OK but the gray/charcoal was unattractive in my opinion but colors are such a subjective thing, I don't think my personal opinion is all that important. Plus, I have never seen either color scheme in its original state and might change my mind if I saw one of them where the paint was faded and the clearcoat ragged.

Here's what the paint looks like. Hard to tell from pictures, but they are a nice motorcycle.

Wow Ron, quite a looker!

JohNLA wrote:

Wow Ron, quite a looker!

Thank's. Got that off ebay and drove 2400 miles in 2 days to get her home. Thankfully diesel $1.49 gallon then.

Sharp find, Ron.

Ron's shafty is one of the few I have seen where the paint was salvageable. Nice bike. This is a pic of my 79 BEFORE I started work on it.

The fella who had owned the 79 wanted to turn it into a KZ900... he bought another tank (which was actually for a J model), a tail piece from an earlier KZ, brought a brand new black 4 into 1 Kerker and last, had bought an almost new seat from a Z1R. The seat from the Z1R sold for over $500 on eBay as did the Kerker. I bought the shafty for a couple hundred so made out OK. When I got it home, I took it down to the frame. I bead blasted the engine and had it powder coated and painted the body parts with a Ford competition red. The frame was painted and almost all the fasteners were removed and replaced with stainless steel. I rebuilt the engine as well. My shafty has a set of VM26s on it with a Z1 airbox but I do have a set of BS series carbs awaiting rebuilding that I will put on when I get to it. I will convert the OEM airbox (at least the upper part) back to use and put some modified rubber connectors in to connect the carbs. The electrical was all stripped off and every connector cleaned or replaced. I have a Dyna S and Dyna coils as the OEM stuff was suspect and have converted the fuse box to a modern, blade type.

The OEM exhaust system was not salvageable so I put on a 4 into 2 ceramic coated MAC system I found in an eBay store. I have added case guards, a K&G rear rack/backrest and a windshield. The seat has also been recovered since this pic was taken. I found a company here in Texas that makes seat covers and got one with no lateral ribs as I find a plain seat more comfy.