Trouble with KZ front brakes

I am working on a bike that the fork seals went bad and soaked the brake assembly with oil. I cleaned the rotors, calipers, wheels and everything that was soaked with fork oil. Now I cant seem to get any brake pressure at all and I have to pump the lever 8-10 times to get any brake and twenty feet later I have to do it again.
I have bled the brakes three or four times and get no air out of the bleeders yet I can't get a full lever so to speak.
Since everything was soaked with oil for an extended period of time (probably sat for two years) could the brake pads be mushy?
I cleaned them by appling a little heat from a propane torch and shooting with brake cleaner, I repeated until the pads didn't release anymore oil and remained dry, they seemed to be hard as a set of new pads that I had for another bike.
Also, if I grab the brake hoses and pump the lever I can feel the line pulse, not like a balloon but you can tell the lever is being pulled. Could the hoses be bad?

Sorry this is so long but your opinions are needed.

did you remove the calipers to clean them,have you tried bleeding the brakes?
id replace the pads while youre at it,what kind of bike?

It is a 75 Z1 but it has wheels and forks off of what seems to be a 77 KZ. I removed the forks to replace the seals and cleaned the calipers really good and have bleed the brakes three or four times since I put it back together. When my Dad bought this bike the brakes were awful but the were covered in fork oil.

If this will help you here is a pic of said bike.

those look like 650 wheels to me,no biggie
anyway might be time to rebuild calipers and master cylinder.im kinda partial to z1's myself also!

A 650 eh? When I replaced the rear sprocket I got one for a '77 KZ 1000 and it bolted right up, a '75 900 sprocket wasn't the right bolt patern. I suppose the wrong one could've been for a spoke wheel instead of a mag if that made a difference.

That is a beauty you got there, as you can see mine has been butchered.

kz1000s never came with a drum rear brake,900 ltd's had mags with disc brake rear wheel.
those look like stock kawasaki mag wheels so im guessing 650 anyway
ive got all the parts to convert it to disc brake swing arm and wheel if you ever decide to ,mine was in worse shape than that when i got it.
built it from a lot of spare parts ,its currently in pieces again! :laugh:

your front forks are 78-80

My Dad just turned this bike over to me and he always wanted to put spoke wheels back on it. There was a guy here local that wanted to trade his spokes for these mags but his spokes were off a 650 so we didn't think they would work.
How's that for irony?

i can set ya up with wire wheels and a dics brake swingarm if you ever need them

When I redid my fr. brakes, kz1000 ltd 78, I found that popping the br. lever caused air bubbles to rise into the resv. They were tiny bubbles and I kept doing it until the brakes got the way they should be.