rear wheel swap options?

hey all....

one of my winter projects is to take weight off my 1975 kz900 street/strip bike. The bike is a hardtail so a swingarm swap is not an option. One of the things I want to do is get rid of the stock rear drum and steel rim and replace it with something lighter and preferably a disc brake. Any ideas as to what rear wheel I can use on the back. The bike is still street legal and I do ride it on the street from time to time so I am not looking to alter the chain line too much. I have access to a tig machine so welding is not a problem for the brake anchor.

so what are my options? what is easy? zx9?

how much room ya got in there?much wider and the chain line will change.what about a disc brake hub for a spoked wheel and relace your rim.you got options but we need pics and more info.

leon holmes

The spoked rims are a tad lighter than the mags if you are going for weight reduction

The rear right now is a stock spoked 1975 kz900 (no mags) for stock width and chain line I can't go much wider and I don't want to go longer - the bike is already slammed to the ground and just how I like it. I can't change the swingarm because the previous owner welded the strut bars to the stock swingarm and frame and I really don't feel like changing all of that this winter (maybe next if I want to go more street than strip).

I am not doing this to go wider, I want to save a significant amount of weight. That rear drum is pretty heavy and a modern disc setup might just be the key. I know I can probably track down some PM chicanes if I wanted to but really I don't want to spend that much. I was just wondering what others have done out there in terms of rear wheel swaps - I have seen a lot of posts about zx9 front ends but nothing about the rear.

most of the rear swaps we do go to wider wheels.
what about a late model 450 dirtbike hub?talon builds some nice stuff and then you could use the caliper and m/c from say a cr450f or kxf450.just a thought.

leon holmes