I noticed you have the plastic shroud that sits inside the fairing and surrounds the gauges , do you have gauges ? I took apart my set . The rubbers that surround the fuel ,volt ,tach and speedo are rotten but everything else looks great . In the past i have sanded and painted gauges and the end result is nice . I can save them for you if your interested . I wonder if the rubbers are still available ? Porsche uses rubbers very similar in old 911's . I purchased a gpz 900 swing arm (too wide ) for my hot rod kawa , after seeing your post i realize i should have brought a 750 gpz arm . I took my head into shop for valve job and had my cylinders checked . they said just a hone would clean them up . I checked the price of new rings and for another 150 i can get a big bore kit .
[attachment:1]IMG_20160521_0618555.jpg[/attachmen

Next on the list was the rearsets. I couldn’t find any that I either liked, or could afford. The ones I liked most was when someone used later model Kawasaki or Suzuki rearsets and grafted them onto their bike. So I went to the salvage yard and started looking around to see if I could find what I wanted. I eventually found a ’91 zx600d that had ones that I kinda liked and they were in great condition.
I knew that I didn’t want to just weld on some nuts onto the frame to bolt them to, but would rather devise a bracket that would bolt into the holes for the factory foot pegs and then I could bolt the rearsets to those. I found this decision to be the harder and more costly route.

First the factory foot pegs bolt onto studs that are screwed into the frame. But the studs are stepped, so the initial hole in the frame is 10mm then goes down to 8mm threads. So I had to first find 10mm OD bushings with an 8mm ID just to press into the frame holes so my bracket could be solidly bolted to the frame without worry of the bolt being unsupported.





Once I figured that out, I then started by making plywood templates of the bracket with varying degrees of angles so I could get the tilt of the rearsets just right. After about 4 tries I finally got the angle just right and then measured for the spacers that I would need to offset the bracket from the frame so It would clear the swing arm pivot bolt.
ThenI had to make a CAD file for the machinist, so I took a week to relearn AutoCad (It had been 15 years) to the point I could draw up the bracket and spacers so I could have those made up out of 3/8 steel plate and aluminum.
This is one of those things I simply do not have the tools to do, and they need to be dead on, which I knew I couldn’t do with just a hacksaw and a file. But you have to pay for quality work, and pay I did.

I ended up stripping the paint off the rearsets and polishing the aluminum. The rubber footpegs were replaced with ebay ones and the hardware I had re-zinc plated yellow just as it was from the factory. The brackets I had powder coated along with the frame. The zx600d shift linkage was way to long, but thankfully the shift rod from the zr550 is the perfect length.









In the end they cost as much, if not more than new ones, but they turned out exactly like I wanted. They may not be everybody’s cup of tea but I am very happy with my results.

Forgot to take pics, but started fastening my rear fender by welding a curved strap towards the front of the Swingarm. Spanning the two legs. Then I drilled a hole in the bottom of the fender and using a plastic washer as a spacer I bolted it to the strap. Now I need to make some brackets to go from the rear wheel adjuster area to the fender. I mounted it to the Swingarm not the frame to allow the fender to hug the tire better. I think I am going to use a bit longer Lower shock bolts and mount the braces to the inside of the Swingarm with a nut. I was going to weld a couple threaded tabs to the top side of the adjuster, but using a bit longer bolts with nuts will look cleaner. I'll take a couple pics. I've used up all my scrap 1" strap laying around and will actually have to buy metal to make the braces. That sucks. Ordered some forward controls through TC Bros today so I can start fitting it all and prep it for paint.


Oh. Threw on some 8" mini apes to give it a different look. I like these better then the drag bars, I think.

While I have not said much further here about the Z1B it is alive and well. It now has about 3500 miles .
I noticed the heat shields around the oil cooker lines were melting and it concerned me that perhaps the cooler was actually heating the oil.
I decided to re route them and while I was at it I thought a different look for the header was also in order. I did it in bright silver.
For the future it will still get a Corbin seat and a damper.

Once I had the entire bike stripped down to the frame, I moved into the basement as the Minnesota winter had started and it was to cold to work in the garage. I first started by trying to level the frame relative to the earth and then started trying to determine if the frame was bent or if anything was wonky. After measuring and remeasuring, everything checked out straight, so I moved onto properly fitting the swing arm.
The first issue is that the zr550 uses a 17mm pivot bolt on the swing arm and the kz750 uses a 16mm. I had no confidence that I could drill the frame holes out to 17mm dead-on straight, but I found a member here that had done a zr550 swing arm swap and had found an elegant solution to make it work.
www.kzrider.com/forum/5-chassis/222082-z...650-how-to-hopefully
He found that Suzuki swing arm bushings had the correct OD and the 16mm ID that would make it possible to use the kz750 pivot bolt. All that needed to be done is to cut down the zr550 sleeve to fit in between the Suzuki races as a spacer. I ended up cutting down the kz750 sleeve so it was 16mm all the way through and there would be no slop in the ID. Having no lathe, I took it to a machinist, and it took him all of 5 minutes to cut down the kz750 sleeve to 160mm and I was on my way.
Now that I had the swing arm pivot sorted, when I bolted it up to the frame, the swing arm fit inside the frame bosses with about a 1MM clearance between the frame bosses and the pivot sleeve. But I would need to make room for thrust washers on either side of the swing arm pivots to keep the swing arm from sliding back and forth on the inner sleeve. So I took a file and filed down each frame boss until I had (after a lot of trial and error) 2.5mm of clearance on both sides. I took the swing arm caps from the kz750 swing arm and made them into my thrust washers. The caps are 1.5mm thick which gave me 1mm of "slop" on either side to shim the swing arm if I needed. (and I would later find that I definitely need to shim it.)

Suzuki OEM # 61251-49000 bearing races and kz750 sleeve cut down to 160mm for a total length of 230mm. Thrust washers at the ends.




Before I knew better, I spent an insane amount of time filing the frame and spacing the swing arm until I had the wheel in the perfect center of the frame. Only to find out later that the front and back wheels can be offset, and in fact some bikes come from the factory that way in order to facilitate chain alignment. But a year or so down the road I would find that all that work would pay off, as I will need to shift the swing arm over 1mm in order for my chain and sprockets to line up. Shwew!





The front triple tree and top clamp fit perfectly in the frame, and all that was needed was a new bearing conversion kit from All Balls Racing.
The steering stops were not going to work and had to be modified. Of the three zr550 triple tree's I had, all of them had bent steering stops, So I decided they must not be strong enough and so I cut them off and began devising a solution that would work a lot like the kz750 steering stop that is integrated on the frame. I took some scraps of 1/4" steel and cut and filed out two stops that would be welded to the tree. I just needed to measure it all up with the forks and the gas tank, so I knew I had the proper position of the stops before I had them welded on. But I need to decide what gas tank I was going to use......

Kawasakikid wrote: Hi Divido. No problems because as I said in another reply, I am having to lay heavy on the preload because initially I did have that problem. I plan on putting appropriate springs in so I can back off the preload and have some play there for when I need it. I have the same problem with rear shocks. Sandy at Works Performance shocks worked them out for me and is the "standard" ride height from tire to bottoming out as a Harley because I wanted a prostreet look not ass in the air streetfighter look. But I'm at full preload there as well. Still not an uncomfortable ride as I've done 325 miles in one trip but it could be much better. I plan on going to a 1" longer chock so I can back off preload there as well. It's all in trial and error sometimes because fitting a superbike front end to an old dinosaur (don't bother critics) isn't a perfect world. My KZ is a lot more front heavy than the ZX so there are adjustments to be made. My GSXR swingarm worked out great but took the wheelie fun out of the picture. I can drop the hammer now and it only comes up a foot off the ground and stays there instead of the blood pumping tach over my head, feet off the pegs "OH CRAP" moment but that'so ok too. I'm older and wiser now. lol Ride on!

Ok,so if I understand it, by playing with the suspension set up ,the bike is high enough to stop the pipe from scraping under heavy braking.How about speed bumps and pot holes,things like that? (slow pedestrians!)

Hi Divido. No problems because as I said in another reply, I am having to lay heavy on the preload because initially I did have that problem. I plan on putting appropriate springs in so I can back off the preload and have some play there for when I need it. I have the same problem with rear shocks. Sandy at Works Performance shocks worked them out for me and is the "standard" ride height from tire to bottoming out as a Harley because I wanted a prostreet look not ass in the air streetfighter look. But I'm at full preload there as well. Still not an uncomfortable ride as I've done 325 miles in one trip but it could be much better. I plan on going to a 1" longer chock so I can back off preload there as well. It's all in trial and error sometimes because fitting a superbike front end to an old dinosaur (don't bother critics) isn't a perfect world. My KZ is a lot more front heavy than the ZX so there are adjustments to be made. My GSXR swingarm worked out great but took the wheelie fun out of the picture. I can drop the hammer now and it only comes up a foot off the ground and stays there instead of the blood pumping tach over my head, feet off the pegs "OH CRAP" moment but that'so ok too. I'm older and wiser now. lol Ride on!

kaw-a-holic wrote:

davido wrote: Not to distract from the handbag swinging going on but,getting back to the ground clearance thing

Kawasakikid wrote: GSXR Swingarm for me. Ground clearance is an issue if you pick up fat chicks in the trailer park. Seriously though, I am real close in tight turns but I run a firmer but not uncomfortable preload and dampening on front and back. I catch flack once in a while however Kzs aren't known for peg dragging anyway so slammed to the ground isn't an issue.

Kawsakikid, Im not so worried about peg dragging and Im not planning on picking up any fat chicks from trailer parks ,or anywhere else,( Im building a mono seat bike for now) what worries me is with the dive of the bike under heavy breaking and potholes and ramps.Things like that.Looking at your photo,your bike look pretty low.Have you had any problems there?

David,
My bike is in the weeds with the GSXR 750 front end. I am going to change it to a GSXR 1100 front end to gain another 1 1/2 inches. Now I have a reasonable drop on the custom triple my brother and I are designing. Should have the 3D model of it shortly.
In regards to your question, I currently only scrap on right handers if I dip to much. Speed bumps are a major issue.

Jon.My question was directed to kawaskikid.Theres a photo earlier on in this thread of him on his bike.It look pretty low to the ground (Like yours and mine) I was wondering what problems,if any,he was having with it (apart from scraping the pegs!). I know weve talked before about how to raise the front ends on our bikes and I know youve been looking at dropped triples but Im still undecided.Im still leaning more to the cheaper fork extension method,(though the whole thing has been shelved for now. Im still waiting on the powdercoater to give my wheels and swingarm back.Im busy with electrics in the meantime * ) I reckon,Ill just put it on the road as is and see how it goes.
I talked with my local bike shop about nose dive under heavy braking but he explained that as the front goes down,the arse comes up.Which makes sense. Though how thatll work in the real world ,Im still not sure. The speed bumps. Yeah,thats another concern.We have a lot of them around here,most Im familiar with,its the ones I dont know that worry me. (Theyre not well marked here and come at you out of nowhere!)
Anyway,kawaskikid. Your bike looks pretty low sitting to the ground and you look like a big fella,Have you still got any chrome (or steel !) on the underneath of your downpipes ??

* While Im waiting on the powdercoater,Im also getting the stuff together for an anodising setup.Another thing Ive not tried before. Looking forward to it and Ill post results in my build thread Hopefully some nice tasty black anodised aluminium parts will be added soon. Ha Ha!!

davido wrote: Not to distract from the handbag swinging going on but,getting back to the ground clearance thing

Kawasakikid wrote: GSXR Swingarm for me. Ground clearance is an issue if you pick up fat chicks in the trailer park. Seriously though, I am real close in tight turns but I run a firmer but not uncomfortable preload and dampening on front and back. I catch flack once in a while however Kzs aren't known for peg dragging anyway so slammed to the ground isn't an issue.

Kawsakikid, Im not so worried about peg dragging and Im not planning on picking up any fat chicks from trailer parks ,or anywhere else,( Im building a mono seat bike for now) what worries me is with the dive of the bike under heavy breaking and potholes and ramps.Things like that.Looking at your photo,your bike look pretty low.Have you had any problems there?

David,
My bike is in the weeds with the GSXR 750 front end. I am going to change it to a GSXR 1100 front end to gain another 1 1/2 inches. Now I have a reasonable drop on the custom triple my brother and I are designing. Should have the 3D model of it shortly.
In regards to your question, I currently only scrap on right handers if I dip to much. Speed bumps are a major issue.

Not to distract from the handbag swinging going on but,getting back to the ground clearance thing

Kawasakikid wrote: GSXR Swingarm for me. Ground clearance is an issue if you pick up fat chicks in the trailer park. Seriously though, I am real close in tight turns but I run a firmer but not uncomfortable preload and dampening on front and back. I catch flack once in a while however Kzs aren't known for peg dragging anyway so slammed to the ground isn't an issue.

Kawsakikid, Im not so worried about peg dragging and Im not planning on picking up any fat chicks from trailer parks ,or anywhere else,( Im building a mono seat bike for now) what worries me is with the dive of the bike under heavy breaking and potholes and ramps.Things like that.Looking at your photo,your bike look pretty low.Have you had any problems there?