I'm looking for ideas on a wheel upgrade for my 79 KZ1000 MKII. I currently have a 3.5" x 18 front and a 5.5" x 17 rear. Both are stock KZ wheels that were widened. The front was an 18" from a Z1-R and the rear was a 16" LTD wheel that was widened and the diameter increased to 17". I had these done about 10 years ago and went with the 17" for a better choice of tires. I've never truly been happy with the look of the 17" rear wheel. I think it looks too small. I'll attach a pic below.

Fast forward to today and I'm planning to change things up a bit with a new, stock length swingarm and more of a sportbike style rather than the dragbike style I have now. It would be so expensive to have another wheel widened and chrome plated to match the front, so what are some other options? Modern sportbike wheels look nice but I don't want to change the forks and I want to keep the stock speedo drive etc.... I want to continue to run a 180/55 on the rear.....any ideas? Thanks

After a bit of a delay, the powder coater came through and everything looks great.

Set off straight away after work yesterday and installed the new swing arm bearings from All Balls.



Packed the rollers full of grease and pushed the seals into place. Next to install the pivots. Had a bit of overspray in the holes which required some dremel work to remove but they went in easy enough.



Positioned the swing arm and installed the center stand. Then it was time to call it a night.



Popped the stearing bearing races into the freezer before dinner. Will get back to the build after MotoGP qualifying is done this morning.

Hello all. Been away for a while. Lately, I've been daydreaming about fitting a set of the Enkei style mags to a CB550 project I'm working on.

The front is probably the easy one. Maybe a bearing swap to match the axle to the CB forks, a caliper hanger, etc.

But the rear has me thinking...
Honda never made a CB500/550 with rear disc. Was there a KZ550 (or other suitable) rear mag wheel in 18"? If so, what model(s)?

I also considered swapping to rear disc. I've found a GPZ550 rear swing arm and caliper. What size pivot bolt and axle does the KZ/GPz series use? (And while we're at it, can I get the axle size for the front, too?)

Any information, measurements, etc, you can provide would be much appreciated.

WarrensKZ wrote:

old greek wrote: Just throwing this out there, but i've heard vibrating front ends caused by swing arm bearings starting to go bad...Pete

Bearings all the way round have been changed. It was the wind that day. I have been on the bike since and its fine.

That sounds reasonable. In 50k miles of tire changing I've never experienced the excessive headlight/panel thing yet. Glad to hear that it is up and running.

old greek wrote: Just throwing this out there, but i've heard vibrating front ends caused by swing arm bearings starting to go bad...Pete

Bearings all the way round have been changed. It was the wind that day. I have been on the bike since and its fine.

Just throwing this out there, but i've heard vibrating front ends caused by swing arm bearings starting to go bad...Pete

Daftrusty wrote: Ironically I have the entire front suspension (and in mint condition) from my kz750e you could use, but shipping would cost three times more than it is worth.But I mainly want to dispel your fear of ground clearance issues with using Zephyr forks with a 17" front wheel. The Zephyr 550 or 750 front end literally bolts onto your bike with nothing more than new bearings. ( This only makes sense if you are also using the Zephyr wheel, otherwise it is way too much work to put a 19" kz/gpz wheel on a Zephyr front end. But then you will need to address your rear wheel and swing arm so they match.....) The smaller diameter front wheel will improve handling feel and the Zephyr forks are a larger diameter which which will reduce flex and also improve handling to a small degree.
Lastly, I have zero issues with ground clearance and my exhaust header using the Zephyr suspension and 17" front wheel as can be seen in the attached photo.
Hope this helps.

That's a very clean and nice looking bike! I love earlier Z/KZ series. They are awesome bike! Too bad I can have any here. No, not the money. They just not available here. I do come across them one in a while, but not enough.

Anyway, thanks for the info on Zephyr forks. Yeah, I do have friends in Japan so I'll definitely look into their fork. I had my eyes on their 400 models as they are plentiful and I know it's 39mm but still better than our 36mm. 750 41mm looks nice too but not too many of them are out there (due to Japan's motorcycle licensing system). Now, I need to somehow convince my wife I need a big big box to fit the Zephyr wheels.................(she won't know that the wheels will be in the box).

Ojisan rider wrote:
Thanks martin_csr. I been looking at those as well, but with that price, specially for both tubes, I can buy a fork set for Zephyr for way cheaper. Right now, I'm debating if I should stick with stock fork which let me have the 18-inch wheel up front or go with more modern fork with 17-incher. I don't mind going to 17-inch. It's just more involve as I probably need to change out back to more modern setting such as Zephyr swingarm to go with the front setup (which I don't mind as well. More money, but at least I have stronger and nice looking arm). I'm also worry about the ground clearance, specially with 4-1.

What to do, what to do....................

Ironically I have the entire front suspension (and in mint condition) from my kz750e you could use, but shipping would cost three times more than it is worth.
But I mainly want to dispel your fear of ground clearance issues with using Zephyr forks with a 17" front wheel. The Zephyr 550 or 750 front end literally bolts onto your bike with nothing more than new bearings. ( This only makes sense if you are also using the Zephyr wheel, otherwise it is way too much work to put a 19" kz/gpz wheel on a Zephyr front end. But then you will need to address your rear wheel and swing arm so they match.....) The smaller diameter front wheel will improve handling feel and the Zephyr forks are a larger diameter which which will reduce flex and also improve handling to a small degree.
Lastly, I have zero issues with ground clearance and my exhaust header using the Zephyr suspension and 17" front wheel as can be seen in the attached photo.
Hope this helps.

Is the wheel still central after moving the swing arm over ?
If it's not you will have to recentralise with new spacers and still take the original larger amount you had off the carrier.
On average it's usually around 8mm but i've had to remove more or less depending on wheel/motor.
I machine my carriers in the lathe but you could just take it to a machine shop and tell them how much you want off and it should be a simple job for them.
I set the carrier backwards in the chuck so I can take a very light cut off the back where it fits the cush to ensure it's parallel with the sprocket mount face then spin it round and machine what's needed off the sprocket mount.
Sometime it's more complicated if it leaves too little material for the sprocket studs to screw into and I've had to sink the carrier bearings and shorten the inner spacer to get the clearance required whilst still retaining a minimum thread depth for the sprocket studs.
I did a Z650 with Suzuki RF600 Teapot running gear a few years ago and it was a simple job with just a few mm off the carrier.
I'm doing ZX12R wheels in my latest Z1R Turbo project and the 6" wheels rear carrier has needed 15mm off , 7/8th front offset ( I've actually extended the gearbox output shaft to take a cheap stock sprocket rather than an expensive offset one ) and the frame notching but the wheel is still true central.

Arm ready for you to paint and install your pivot bearings, $325, comes with axle to fit the wheel, just need to know if drum or disc brakes. I just shipped a rush package to Australia, Was a tick over $80, on a slow ride it would have been less than $15 buck. I can size one up and check on USPS to give you a ball part, just need an address to plug into the calculator.
Now, Zed does have a good suggestion, quite sure it'd be cheaper than the arm and shipping but I'd still be happy to build you one!

Les Holt