73 vs 74 Z1 forks and valving

I would think that the change from the 73 design to 74 was for the better, but maybe not.  Does anyone know what the end result (ride quality) of the 74 valves was?

73
 

74
 

I have rebuilt a dozen or so pairs of forks from 74-75 up to 1978 and haven’t seen the damper you show as a 1974 Z1. They all are like the 1973 example 

 

Both designs are pictured in John Brookes' book (fourth edition) & onward, and in Kawasaki BULLETIN SER 74 GEN -16 detailed below.

Scuttlebutt was that changes were made to improve damping, and also to eliminate the irritating 'thunk' heard that early forks could produce when striking abrupt, raised edges such as driveway entrances at low speed.

General Service BULLETIN SER 74 GEN -16 documents differences, special tool for dis / reassembly, and changes to PN #'s (attached below).  That bulletin also refers to BULLETIN SER 74 GEN 17 , which we done have.  (If anyone has BULLETIN SER 74 GEN 17, could you please post it?)  Thx.



Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

EDIT: posting as .jpg's.

Hmmmm . . .  I get this from clicking on that PDF link:ForbiddenYou don't have permission to access this resource.Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


Any special reason for that?Thanks SlimJim & Z1BEBE, good info to know.  I will put in the updated assembly.

You can find GEN 17 here:   kawatriple.com/bulletins/74gen-17.pdf

 

OOPS!  
After looking at the service bulletins I appears I got my 73 - 74 labelling backwards.  Glad I have it straight now before I put it all back together.

sdinse wrote:

Hmmmm . . .  I get this from clicking on that PDF link:ForbiddenYou don't have permission to access this resource.Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


Any special reason for that?Thanks SlimJim & Z1BEBE, good info to know.  I will put in the updated assembly.








 

Sorrry.  Our attachment-fu is stymied on this site sometimes. 
We attached that .pdf file two different ways, because we're not sure how the site handles .pdf files.  The live link seems broken.  There's also an icon at the bottom of the post that is the same .pdf file.  Clicking that enables downloading & viewing, or right-clicking enables 'save link as' function, at least on Firefox.

We'll re-scan as a .jpg. below & edit that other post if it's not too late.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

If you email it to me as a PDF I will put in on the filebase 

Thank you so much!  These are much better quality than the ones I got from the Kaw Triples website.  It's all very clear now.  See what I did there?  Ha Ha  

Wookie58 wrote:

If you email it to me as a PDF I will put in on the filebase 

 

If right clicking on the .pdf attachment (not the live link) & selecting 'save link as' doesn't work we can do that.  Send us an email & we'll attach in response.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

sdinse wrote:

Thank you so much!  These are much better quality than the ones I got from the Kaw Triples website.  It's all very clear now.  See what I did there?  Ha Ha  

          Kawatriple: 12-6-74 BULLETIN SER 74 GEN 17
slmjim+Z1BEBE : 10-30-74 BULLETIN SER 74 GEN 17