Transmission cover?

Sorry for being such a newbie here. What’s is this called.? What does it do? If I remove it will it start to leak? Is there a gasket under neath? Also I saw many people running small filters on top of this. Is that a good idea. I wanted to remove to polish up the cover. Was thinking of adding the filter as well if suggested. Does anyone know what will fit and perform well? I have a 1978 kz1000a2.

That's the crankcase breather. It allows the crankcase to vent to the atmosphere. Normally, there would be a hose going from the cover into the airbox, when using pod filters people usually put a filter on it. At the least you should put a filter on it to stop anything getting into the crankcase.

Edit: you can take it off to polish it. Not familiar with the KZ1000 but you should just need to unscrew the fitting at the top and then pull the cover off.

Thank you for your prompt reply. Do you know if it will leak if removed? I wanted to polish it. I would assume just a standard gasket underneath

FYI. I am running pods

Just edited my post - looks like I was too slow
Should just be an o-ring under there (91mm according to CMS).

It won't really leak anything as long as the engine is not running... as in a bunch of oil won't dump out of it. There could be a few drops of oil around the o-ring gasket when you remove it.

No if you run it with that cover removed, it will spray out vapor and oil mist.