Hey guys, Ive been lurking a bit here and there and have decided its time to get myself a Kaw. I am looking for a 79-80 KZ1000 MKII but many seem to be shaft drive. After looking at parts on CMSNL, it seems there are only a few parts that differ between the chain and shaft models. Here is the only other advice I could gather:
I have started to convert my 79 KZ1000 shaft to chain, I didn't think it was possible until I saw a post on one of my threads on Cusotmfighter.com, a guy named bill posted this....
The Shaftdrive zeds are really easy to convert to chain drive, I have done loads of them. You'll need the following parts.
Chaindrive gearbox output shaft
Sprocket back plate
Sprocket cover and cable clutch actuator worm
Flip the motor upside down,
Remove the side covers and ignition housing
Remove the bevel box
Remove the lower crankcase half
Take out the gearbox out put shaft, and remove all the gears
Fit the gears onto your new chandrive output shaft
Refit the shaft, and refit the lower crankcase half
Remove the peg that the gearchange claw spring acts on and put it into the hole next to it.
Refit the gearchange claw mechanism into the other hole.
Fit the sprocket back plate
Fit a sprocket
Fit the sprocket cover.
Refit the clutch cover and ignition housing and ignition cover
Refit the Alternator cover
Job done.
You can now fit whatever swingarm you want in there, the other thing you will find is that the swingarm pivot area is much wider on the shafty than on the chaindrive models, this has two beneficial effects, A/ You can fit a wider arm giving you better choice of parts, and B/ you can run a wider wheel without worrying about the chainrun hitting the frame. With a little tweaking the Triumph single sided arm will fit into the shafty frame, although the wheel needs spacing to the right by around 10/15mm.
The cost for the conversion has come to £141 inc shipping I will need to add gaskets, hope this gives you a rough idea of cost. I've gone with a hayabusa swing arm and running gear, this has added 2-3 inches to the wheel base
It seems to me that it should be pretty straightforward to swap. I will be going to mid Ohio in a few weeks for VMD so I may wait until then, but would suspect that the usual sky high pricing will prevail there. Nice shaft models seem to be in the $2500 range where I am. Is there a significant premium on the chain models? I will wait for the right bike if I cannot convert as I already have a set of Astralite wheels I want to use. Dr. Gamma's superbike is my inspiration and its about the best KZ1000 I have ever seen (though I have not been looking long).
More about me, Im a Honda CB750 single cam guy and that is what got me into street bikes originally. I am now working on a couple and racing one with AHRMA in Sportsman 750 but want to get something with more grunt out of the box, and the KZ has my number.
Looking forward to finding a MKII to work on and get a project thread going here.
