KZ900 / 1000 Chain cover compatibility

But here it goes. Purchased a new chain cover for my KZ900 (original cover has the chrome pealing off). The used replacement unit I believe came from a KZ1000. The covers look identical when looking at direct frontal view. So all looked good. I cleaned and polished the replacement cover. Got it on, but could not adjust the clutch. No problem, I swapped the worm gear from the old unit and slapped it back on. Adjusted the clutch and everything is nice so far. Starting to get jazzed about riding Saturday. Tried to to install the shifter and the shaft is too short. Tried to figure out why. And noticed from below that it wasn't seating correctly. Took the cover off again and noticed that the two covers are different. The replacement cover has some kind of bushing (guide)in the two bottom bolt holes. Original unit does not. I think these bushings (guides) are inserted in the engine side on my KZ900 instead. Anybody know? Still would like to use this cover. Has anybody modified the one work on a 76 900?

The one on the left is my original cover, the one on the right is the replacement for it. Notice the bushings in the holes (circled in red on the right cover). The original cover does not have these on the cover (also circled in red). The arrows just point to another difference but nothing that causes issues.

Can you remove the dowels with small vice grips? They will come out.

roy-b-boy-b wrote: Can you remove the dowels with small vice grips? They will come out.

Going to give it a try Roy. If not, I plan on drilling the hole out. I spend 3 hours polishing this cover. Got it to a mirror shine. So, hell or high water this thing is going on. :laugh: Just surprised nobody here has run into this issue.

Well, I was able to get these bushings out using a drift. And everything installed nicely. So the bottom line was, on my bike the bushings were on the engine case side instead of the cover, but this replacement cover had the bushings on the cover. So I don't know if the bushings transferred themselves on my bike. Or, the same but opposite direction for the replacement cover on the bike that it came from. If that is even possible. Can't imagine Kawasaki changing the location/orientation of these bushings (engine case vs. chain cover). Anyhow, always seems to be some type of unforeseen hurdle that I'm lucky enough to stumble upon.

Here are bushings/guides I was able to extract from the cover. On my bike these bushings are on the engine case instead.


As part of my 630 to 530 chain conversion I figured I would install a replacement for my chain guard. You can see a similar condition on stator cover (pealing chrome cover). Which is why I replaced the chain cover with an aluminum only version. I have a stator cover ready for replacement as well.