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Here he is at 17,he painted the wheels and swingarm. 

Congrats KellyE on the bike of the month! Nice work as usual.
 

Gotta Love that LTD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations 
Dave

Great work Kelly. That LTD will give you many great memories yet!

And again à réal beauty saved and on the road 

Very nice bike !  i have one to but that is a unbuilt model kit like this   I think that paint cheme is rare.

It's hard to believe April is already here, staying in the USA this month for another offering from Jim (wheelhop) another great example of the beloved "Big Z"Wheelhop’s 1976 KZ900 A4I was visiting one of my online muscle car websites in the early winter of 2021.  I was looking at the story of a guy I am friends with in Pennsylvania who bought a low mile 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS L78. The early pictures of the car in the original owner’s garage in Sand Lake, NY showed a few (3) motorcycles in the front corner of the garage. I called to ask what they were and he gave me the previous owner’s phone # and I gave him a call.  He had said one of them was a 1976 KZ900 and I asked him if he’d be willing to sell it and a deal was made.  I went out there in Early January of 2022 and brought the bike home in the back of my pickup truck.  The bike had been modified and had larger pistons (1200 cc I was told) 12.5 to 1 compression, cam, welded crank,mag wheels, magneto distributor, 33 MM smoothbores, and a Daytona Performance exhaust. With the added HP It had sheared a woodruff key off the crank in the early 1990’s and had been sitting in his garage ever since. The mileage on the clock is only 12,034 miles and is believed to be correct.With some great advice from guys on this site (including Zed1015) I was able to “lap” the end of the crank with valve grinding compound and install a new woodruff key.  The 33 mm smoothbores were sold along with the Lester rear mag wheel in order to help pay for original Takasago spoked wheels and a more civilized rebuilt (by Mikaw) 28 mm Mikuni “pumper” carb. I replaced the “bulbous” seat with a very nice original from a 1977 KZ1000. The tank and body set were removed and sent out to get stripped, and re-sprayed back to 1976 original color,  Diamond Brown and decal/stripe kit was applied and cleared.  The rest of the bike was completely original (frame, front fender, harnesses, handlebars, controls, etc.) and just needed a thorough cleaning.  The bike was brought up to Zukey Lake (thanks Dirk Digler!) in fall of 2022 and fired up for the first time in approximately 32 years!  Many thanks again go out to all the great KZrider.com members who helped along the way. 

Congratulations! 

Another one properly SAVED!

​​​​​​Brown... (somehow) it WORKS.

 

Beautiful ,congratulations on bringing her back 

Nice work Jim. The bike looks so much better now, especially without the giant ass bucket seat and luggage rack. Part of the attraction of KZ's is the tail piece and it's a shame to cover it up with a rack.
What did you use on the exhaust?

Great bike  Jim !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now let's finish another one at our next Zukey Lake  get together
Dave

Kelly E wrote:

Nice work Jim. The bike looks so much better now, especially without the giant ass bucket seat and luggage rack. Part of the attraction of KZ's is the tail piece and it's a shame to cover it up with a rack.
What did you use on the exhaust?


 

I used a high heat / temp paint.  Had always planned on getting the Datona Performance header jet-coated eventually. I am considering installing a Delkevic 4 into 1 exhaust.