Finding date of manufacture?

I've seen a number of places that can reproduce the head VIN sticker, however a PO managed to gouge out most of the line on mine that contains the manufacture date. The bike is a 1981 KZ1000-J1. Is there any place I might be able to look up the date? Alternatively, would anyone have a serial number in the same range that I could use to guestimate the actual date?

Anyone know if there's any laws about the quality of the VIN sticker? I found it was pretty easy to just create and print my own at the correct size. I found some weatherproof labels I can get, and I figured a shot of clearcoat over the top of the sticker would give it that final protection to survive the elements. Any thoughts?

I checked with the local dealer today, and they also were not able to find any information on the month of manufacture. She even pulled out the microfiche (yes they still have that) and searched the old records, but still couldn't find anything. The only she did find was in the engine records -- there was somewhere around 19,000 of the J1 engines made. Unfortunately we don't know what range of years that actually covers, so it still doesn't really help.

At this point I think my only hope is if anyone else with an '81 KZ1000-J1 happens to read this thread and can tell me what their serial # is and what date they have on their frame. If I get a few replies, I might at least be able to narrow it down within a couple months.

I'm just curious if there is any legal reason why you would need the date of manufacture ? I always thought - and I could be wrong - that the important thing was that the VIN # is stamped on the headstock and visible. The sticker itself could be destroyed in an accident or a chemical spill. If replacement is just for cosmetic reasons then perhaps a homemade replacement could be stuck on top of the existing one ? Is anyone ever going to look at it ?

Having said all that I have no idea what the law is in any country or even if there is a law.

Cheers
Edit - Kawasaki.com owner info etc just says from the VIN # that its an 81 STD, no longer under warranty :laugh: and there's an outstanding engine sprocket recall

Yeah the dealer told me about the sprocket recall as well. Not sure what that's about, but the sprocket on both engines look fine?

There's no legal reason for it, its just a nit-pick to try and figure out. The original sticker will be destroyed when I get the frame cleansed, it would just be nice to have the correct info on the new sticker I make. I would probably be more correct in putting a date towards the end of 1980... maybe 11/80, but there's really no telling without at least some kind of table of how many were actually produced during the whole year.

The Zedder CD might have the info about production numbers etc.
Your VIN seems to be in about the middle of the listed vin range there.

Zedder.com -->> bike info -->> 1981 KZ1000-J1

I checked and my bike was built in 7/81 - but it's an "M1" with a J motor in it which I don't think was the original. The engine numbers are about 200 apart - mine is 200 higher than yours. My bike serial number is WAY lower than yours, though - I have '000260' in the M1 (CSR) series.

Is the number on the engine supposed to match the VIN number? I think my engine ends in 002354, so I guess this isn't the original?

In bikes of this vintage, the engine serial numbers almost never matched the bike. Take a look at the Zedder website and you'll see that there are 19200 engine numbers and only 7900 J-models made. My CSR is listed in the same website as having 4700 built and 19200 engine numbers. The J-Model engine was used on both of our bikes, as well as the KZ1000K for that year. The police bike used the older "A" model engine.

Not to sound harsh, but I don't think I'd obsess on this much more if I was you. You wanted to know someone whose bike was built about the same time, and our engine numbers are 200 apart. Unless you want to hire a detective, I'd say that's probably as close as you're likely to get.

But you said you didn't think your engine was original to your bike, so how do you know when the engine was made? If 7/81 was the date your engine was built, then yeah I'd be willing to go along with that. They probably pushed out a large number in each production run, so it would be a safe bet to assume that both of our engines were produced within days of each other.

I'm not obsessing, I'm just bored. Things are really slow at work this week, so I'm reproducing stickers for fun...

I've thought for a long time that my engine was swapped in, but this thread has wondering if maybe it IS the original. I have no idea how they built bikes back then, but the engines being made on or about the same day makes sense.

Still, there's no guarantee that they didn't just grab a random engine from the heap. The fact that your engine number matches your bike VIN is interesting, but my engine number is completely different, so the frame date could be way before, after, or during. My number is low, so if they produced 25 bikes a day, mine was done within two weeks of the first one.

If the manufacturing was done con temporarily, our bikes were probably built a couple days apart.

zedder.com furnishes the range of engine numbers and the range of frame numbers applicable to a particular model in a given year.

Presumably, the lower numbered engines would have gone in the lower numbered frames, and the higher numbered engines would have gone in the higher numbered frames.

The numbers could indicate for example whether or not a 1976 KZ900A has an engine that was manufactured for a KZ900A model.

For 1981 J model, zedder shows:

Year & Model '81 KZ1000-J1
VIN Range JKAKZCJ1vBA000001 - 007900
Engine No. Range KZTOOJE000001 - 019200


Good Fortune!