Best front drum brake from Kawasaki?

Hey there.

I'm looking to replace the wheels on my old KZ440LTD, I've bought a bunch of stuff already for this purpose, and what's still lacking is a drum hub for the front wheel. I'd like to know more about the drum hubs available, as I'm looking at several options.

What I need to know, is what the actual effective swept area is on all of the larger Kawasaki, and some alternate, drum front hubs of the largest configuration available. Whether I should go with early KZ400 or late 440, whether the H1 500 triple had the same hub as the 400, same goes with the KH400 triple for that matter, whether and which of all of these would be best to go with. And also, if anybody has some practical knowledge of some of the cheaper alternatives too- I mean, I AM looking at aftermarket, Ceriani replica stuff - but only in 40 spoke for the moment, unless I can find a good replacement rim in a matching style (priorities man, what a twit) I'm just gonna stick with 40 spoke, 'cause I KNOW what I should get in 36 spoke and I might just hold out for 'em anyway - but there's still Guzzi 850 ambassador front drums, Beemer slash-five drums, CB450 and C77 - which of the Hondas is best? - and Benelli 650 dual sided of course that's a top of the list item for me, I THINK that Grimeca is a 40 spoke though all aftermarket Grimecas I've looked at were 36 (I should squint at some pics of the Benelli) etc etc - and of course the highly rated Suzukis the GT750 and T500 - but also British hubs of which I know fuck all about, just always been keen on Japanese and Italian bikes to tell the truth. Interesting configurations. If there's a really big Brit hub available which isn't too expensive, in 40 spoke, maybe it's got good race support out there, well I'd jump on that too.

For simplicity's sake though, just for an interrim wheel while I get a better hub down the line, I wonder whether the H1 500CC early drum hub, or the early KZ400 (I dunno whether these are different, or whether they differ again from the later Kawis etc) would fit to the spoke set in the KZ650CSR rear wheel I just bought.

Perhaps I should explain:

I've already grabbed some stuff rather impulsively for this build. It started with a couple of NOS belt drive pulleys for the KZ440LTD D model. Gonna go to Gates (makers of the poly-chain GT carbon belt drive fitted to the Zero-S electric bikes) for some sort of up-graded version of the original belt, unless there are some new manufactured versions of them available from Kawi sources....

But yeah I've got the NOS pulleys so far. And from the pulleys on down to the ground, and all within a minute of also finding that great steal of a deal on the belt drive I also grabbed a couple of CSR rear wheels, KZ650CSR and KZ1000CSR for a 3.00 x 16" front and a 3.50 x 16" rear rim, and I already have a KZ400 '75 rear hub to lace up back there - It just comes down to the front hub.

From the get-go I was looking into either KZ400S front hub or better still some kind of Suzuki T500. I've been cooking up this idea in the back of my mind for many many years obviously, and it's been sneaking to the fore quite overtly as I've been miserable about how I missed out last month on a great deal on a GT750 four leading shoe double sided drum hub, complete wheel with new spokes and stainless linkages and the whole deal. $650 for a wheel like that is a great deal. I was away from the PC when the auction closed so I guess it's another ten years until another deal like that comes along ha ha. I also nearly grabbed a T500 drum but then I realized that it's a 36 spoke hub and the rear rim I'd just bought was a 40 spoke. Most of the aftermarket reproduction hubs out there are 36 spoke also.

Originally, I'd looked long and hard at simple KZ400/440 spoked wheels, with considerations for disc brake, whether single or dual, and simple skinny rims, maybe using slightly fatter replacement rims from other wheels I'd bought for my DOHC Honda wire wheel project, like an alloy 19" from an early gold-wing, A KZ750/1000B rear wheel's rim, an alloy rim I removed from a Comstar rear wheel, etc etc. I dunno what prompted the sixteens, I guess I was shopping for tires for the kid's scooter when I hit upon these odd-ball sized maxi-scooter tires. They're basically dumbed down sport-bike tires, they derive directly from them but they're for bikes which don't quite add up to seventeen inch rims, and sixteens are pushing it in most instances. Fact is, they make a FEW seventeens in SOME brands of these tires, but most are the fifteens and fourteens, but the sixteens were the way they'd advertized them as "sport-bike derived" etc etc. Add that up to the notion that the cheapest replacement rims - originally I'd been looking at '70s era "chopper kit" rear rims in chromed steel - until that is, I saw the CSR rims while looking at a hub drive for my DOHC wheel swap project....

I guess you could say that, while it seems very eclectic, it all came together from several different disciplines of my projects, all together in a convergence of serendipity which will make up one great set of wheels.

AND I'm planning on doing all of my spoked rims as tubeless, using the "Team Incomplete BMW" method of silicone on the rims. If it worked on a retro Beemer race-bike in AHRMA classes, for FIVE YEARS worth of tire swaps and shit, it will work great on my bikes. If I have to, I will put three valves on the CSR rims, so that I can fill in the rim-lock holes. Ha ha. Or maybe braze em shut. Or perhaps little mini pressure gauge dials. WTF, I dunno. I just don't see rim locks and inner tubes on these rims, I wanna go super-duper light-weight. As for the silicone, I used to build fish-tanks the size of your BATHROOM, installed 'em in banks and hotel lobbies and hospital grieving rooms and casinos and whateverthefuck, I KNOW my silicone. G.E.1200 construction grade clear should do the trick. Might not get the spokes back out again, 'cause this shit is STICKY. Maybe even water it down with some acetic, so I can get it down in the nipple dimples (Mmmm, nipples and dimples I'm getting a visual....) so the nipples are protected from corrosion - OR just get new spoke sets from Buchanan's I'm already putting in an order might as well tack on two more sets - JUST as soon as I know what hub to use.


But yeah anyway, what I'm still looking for is some kinda nice fat drum hub up front, hopefully something that would take the OEM spokes from the KZ650CSR rear wheel, just for economy's sake. That money would be bette spent on the upgraded future drum hub, aftermarket replica type of shit. But, IF I've gotta replace the spokes, I'll go all extra-heavy-duty on 'em. I've entertained the notion all along from the get-go of needing new spokes for this front rim, and a re-drilling too, of the alternate brake system: a dual disc 650 hub but I like the idea of a drum hub on that tiny fat rim.

If anybody else interested in the tires, check out Michelin Golden-Standard for a start. There are also Pirelli Sport Demons I think - Sport something. I believe there are two or three lines from Pirelli. And hundreds from Kenda. Dunlop has a couple. Avon too. And Metzeller I believe. Who's LEFT? Ha ha. Nobody wanted to miss out on the Maxi-Scooter range. And they've got good load ratings, I'd bet they're compatible with analagous same brand front tires in nineteen and eighteen, such that people could even stick 'em on their cruisers.

Not sure whether there are radials available in these sizes yet, but there are certainly radial type profiles, just like you see in the 110/80ZR18 fr and 160/60ZR18 Rr, there are bias tires in the same profiles. - In any case there are 110/70x16 and 120/70x16, and the 3.50 rear rim will take up to a 140/70-16 - and there are a hell of a lot more tires in this range when one looks at the "cheapo" brands, and I'm not just talking about cruiser tires I'm gonna stick with the lower profile scooter tires - Kenda has probably a thousand versions and all with unique cool looking retro treads on them. There are all sorts of odd-ball sizes in the Michelin Golden-Standard and other tires of the type. Pirelli makes a radial, I believe. As does Michelin. But with this group of tires they often only release radial versions in certain sizes, often the fatter fourteen inch or fifteen inch range. So, I'm not hung up on it, but if I really look around, and most certainly as the maxi-scooter segment expands, there will probably be a radial I can fit to BOTH rims, in the proper sizes. So far, I know I can get two "front" rated tires in identical 120/70 spec, and they'll fit both rims. But of course, I'd rather have the rear with a higher load rating on it - not that the bike's gonna be heavy at all. (Planning a kick-start modified 400 motor, 440 head etc, with battery eliminator etc etc. 100lbs jockey on it, and her girl-friends are all skinny little bitches too. If she wants to take a boy out on a date I'll loan her my DOHC Honda super-sport which is also getting similar treatment!"7/11" engine rebuild, up-graded brakes, 110/80ZR18 and 160/60ZR18 tires on Excell spoke rims etc etc....) As for the smaller front wheel and what it will do to the bike? It'll mess with the speedo ratio, but I'll see about changing the incremental rate on the dial face before I change anything else. Maybe go to the Koso Acewell type of $%#@!. I HOPE, I pray, that the handling of the bike will quicken a lil' bit, though I am sure the fatter tires will also off-set this effect quite a bit, as opposed to going with old school '60s Honda CA72 type 16" tires in the 90/90 aspect ratio etc. I guess the new tire will be sort of like the VF750F type of thing, the early 130/80-16 shit of late '80s sport bikes, only lower and lighter etc etc. And I've heard they'll REALLY quicken the steering. But the LTD's got a more raked out neck than other 400's, dunnit? Well, we're hoping to make a really sporty version of the 440 here, so I guess we'll see what we get.

Ifor my lil' GRRL. So it's gotta be cool and it's gotta have a solid reliable motor under the hood. Of course we're gonna go with all sorts of other cool looking stuff, make it really hip for the youngster and everything, but it's gotta be solid too.

One might well ask whether in addition to the handling issue itself, whether the bike would be too low to the ground with the smaller front wheel, especially if we put some longer stiffer shocks from some kind of bigger KZ on the ass end ... the thing's definitely gonna have an altered stance. So I was thinking of a scrambler pipe of some sort. Nothing fancy, no chrome or stainless or nothing like that - it could have a tape wrap and $%#@! like that. I was thinking of a heat shield made from an old ventillated hand-guard from an M60 machine gun or some such $%#@!. Plow-shares type of thinking. If I can't get something like that to work, I guess I'll grab some plate and start knocking holes in it. With an M60. Ha ha. Just kidding. But yeah, some kind of neat custom heat shield like that. And a plate on the frame, like an early trail-bike dirt-bike type of deal. This is the only Kawasaki I've ever owned, but I had an SL100 Honda back in the day that had a great plate. Then I look at the front end of the frame, where the down-tubes have the plate welded in the middle, it seems like the best place to put a long narrow oil cooler. A flat seat, a gas tank off of an H1 or H2, and some clip-on bars, maybe from the KR1 - it's got the right diameter, and they're Kawi parts. I dunno about the cheap aftermarket stuff. IF I went with aftermarket I'd get 'em from Motocicli Veloci they've got good rear-sets and bars in all the great replica shapes and sizes. For levers and signals and switch-pots I'll go with anything from the smaller Kawi mopeds and dirt-bikes.

Sorry. I can't help but going into detail about this build, and I suppose I sound like a total cock going on about it but it's such an obsession of mine, I'd been tinkering on my DOHC Honda so long, I could never wrap my head around making that bike safe for my kid and at the same time do the mods I wanna do on it - well now that I've committed to the 440 it's just perfect for her first bike, I really wanna do it RIGHT though, and make the brakes cool yet as safe and as effective as possible.

I'd put huge over-done dual disc brakes on the 440 bit it's not the one that's getting the bigger motor, and besides with the weight loss it's scheduled for I think a good drum would be more than adequate. Especially the T500 drum with some good racing shoes and a good set-up. Better still would be the GT750 hub but I doubt I'd be able to replace the hub when the drum burns out, whereas the T500 might be possible. The shoes I wanna use - aggressive compound "racing" shoes - being likely to eat the thing apart it's a consideration, whether one can procure a new hub. Some kind of sintered diamond depleted uranium type of $%#@!, the pads they make for calipers are supposed to eat discs in no time at all. So hey, if one can find two of the same hub, with ample drum thickness still left in 'em, well then it's better than getting a really over-rated drum which you can't go crazy with the racing shoes. Maybe a smaller drum set up like that would work better than the bigger drum with a street style rig. I dunno, maybe I'm thinking like Spike Lee "Is it the shoes? Is it the shoes?" ha ha.

I promise a truly ugly fit and finish, some terribly screwed up wiring, and little practical fore-thought to any of the chassis modifications. Other than the purple candy flake paint the kid wants, I'd say this thing's gonna look like a real back-yard special. Hopefully she'll pick out some old stuff with some patina on it, and not want to paint it over. Maybe even leave a bunch of the corrosion on the aluminum parts? I like a bit of faded grey on a bike. Too much polish can ruin the thing.

So far so good, it would seem that she hasn't discovered boys in any serious way, I figure there's a very narrow window of opportunity to get a project done, and then I won't hear from her for the next ten years or so. Is it any wonder why this little KZ has seemed to eclipse my ongoing CB750F project?

I guess the idea is to have 'em both all put together at the same time, and if the polish and paint and finish isn't complete well that can get done in the subsequent winter months. Now that I'm a single guy again, the bikes can live indoors and make themselves comfortable all over the place.

Oh and hey, if there's anybody out there who's got a re-built engine, 400 lower end with kick-start, 440 head on it, just sitting on the shelf waiting for a buyer? Please message me.

-S.

Whats the year and model? :huh:

SoyBoySigh wrote: [A lot]

Hello, SoyBoySigh, and WELCOME to KZr!
Here are some links that may be helpful:
www.armbell.com/forum/index.php?c=6&sid=...571a51a&mforum=kz400
www.kz400.com/

Good Fortune!