83 KZ1100 good to be back

Found one local seems to have decent mods and nice custom paint. Tach is kinda intermittent.. Im sure is a loose wire or sensor.. Seat is awful... It's the ugliest seat I've seen. Clutch cable seemed a bit long.. It does have drag bars though. Only thing I can't really seem to get to work is 4 ways.. No biggy.. 23,000 miles. $1800. I do have a bad knee and seemed to b more cramped than my 76 KZ900 was.. But I'll probably get it. The shaft drive seems to be the sticking point for most people that have looked at it. I'm 48 and looking to cruise more than race so shaft is ok. Anything to look for on this particular model I should look for before handing over cash? PS are shorter cables available without having them made?

Looks nice. I'd lose the gators though. Cables are no problem.
Steve

Buy it! I only spent $1200 on mine - '83 kz1100A3' is probably your full model number if it's a shafty.

I've put, eh, then better part of 20k miles on the bike since 2011 and it just eats highyway miles at 100mph no sweat all day long. I'm getting work done on the head gasket leak this week, and a general 50k mile top-end tune-up. The bucket shims for your valves are the only weird conversation you're likely to have, but if you're not drag racing the thing most people won't notice a little gap until it's loud enough to hear.

Since the title of your post is actually pretty accurate (I haven't posted in a year or so) I'm going to put this here, it's even semi-related:

Say you've got a profuse oil leak on your 83kz1100 from the front side of your block and you're 95% sure it's the head gasket (since you did the valve gaps yourself about 10k miles ago). Since you're taking the top end off to replace the gasket and it's absolutely past reasonable service intervals, what else should I look to replace then I've got in the shop? Should I pre-emptively order chain tensioner parts? I assume the valve cover has to come off as well, so I'll need to get another gasket for that but I'm not entirely sure what else I'd need. Any thoughts? Like I said, the bike has probably 50k miles overall and I've had it for 20k so it's due for any service that's convenient with the top off. I just had a shaft oil service when I get new rear rubber so that's good.

More research shows I'm going to be replacing the cylinder head cover gasket - so the split gasket between the cylinder head/valve assemblies and upper cylinder block. So they'll have to take the timing chain off(I think) - is that going to require that they remove the tensioners as well? If so, and it's not another labor charge, those are an obvious candidate, so would that include the springs and guides? I'm balls-deep into the kz1100 pdf manual and I can't determine just what will be exposed when the gasket and weird square o-ring will be replaced.

I don't intend on pulling the actual cylinders or bottom end, as the oil is coming from that top gasket. If I could I'd just replace those - keep in mind I'm having the local kawasaki dealer do the service so. 'm limited to labor costs and I want to keep those down. If I could afford it I'd do a full rebuild but it's not in the budget. Since I have to crack things open while I'm in there lets refresh some things, right?

I should add that I'm hoping to ride the bike from Iowa to Portland by the end of this month so I'll try to keep some updates this time around.

I paid $2,400.00 for my 82 1100 Spectra with just 6K miles. I like the engine and drive line fine but the seating position and handle bars are set up for tiny folks.
One thing I have an issue with is that the camcover bolts on the ends of the cams are difficult to seal against oil leakage.



Bill

I 'd open the fill plug and smell if the gear oil is burnt. If not, looks good.
Steve