KZ900 A4 in kansas

Good to see you're back. Keep us posted on your progress.

Alright so here is what I have decided to do.
I'm sending my head to Larry next Friday to have the ports blueprinted and have a valve job done. Guides and damaged valves will be replaced.

I have decided against boring it out for the moment. I am going to hone the cylinders and replace the piston rings.

I'm hoping to find someone who can bead blast the rest of the cases since Larry is going to do that on the head.
I'm going to replace all of the gaskets and seals across the engine. Clean up the clutch discs. Replace the drive sprockets. New Cam chain. New drive train. Properly rebuild and sync the carbs.

I'm going to clean up the frame and paint the areas that need it and possibly the whole frame with hi-temp paint.

Going to have my seat mounted properly and repair the seat cover.

Gas tank and Rear panel painted and pinstriped with something for my dad. Getting new side panels and having them painted to match the tank.

I will be replacing all the worn out bushing across the bike.

New rear breaks or new rear wheel depend on what I find out about the hub.

Clean up the spokes or have them all replaced.

I think that's it for the moment. I'm sure there will be more to come. But for the moment this will get me on the road riding again! And that's what's most important.

Alright I started working on the bike today...FINALLY. It's been a while since I have had the chance. Didn't get too much done. Started to clean the valve cover and I polished the Sprocket cover and the clutch adjustment cover and the points cover. They came out pretty nice. They did scratch a little when I was wiping them down after I polished them. No biggie I'll finish them up and clean them with the proper stuff later.

If anyone has some suggestions on what compounds to use when polishing on a wheel. I was using Red and Blue and they came out pretty nice. I will post pictures I took of the before and after as soon as I get them emailed to me.

So plans for this week before I start ordering parts.

Remove all parts off the frame and clean frame. Strip and prime Frame. I will be using an epoxy sealer primer to do the frame.

If anyone has any ideas of what paints would be good for the frame that would be great. I will be spraying the paint myself for the frame. Not from rattle can.

I will be sending my tank and rear panel out a body shop so I can have someone put something on the for my dad.

I do need side covers. I see Z1 is out of them. Does anyone have any pictures of them? I would really like to see them from all angles before I buy.

Start full engine tear down and clean engine cases. Polish all external covers and the valve cover.

I want to polish the block but I have no idea how I'm going to do that. It's going to be an adventure. Any ideas would be great.

I will be taking pictures of my progress everyday I work on it any input or suggestions are more than welcome. Please let me know what you think.

Also at the end of the rebuild I'm going to have a total of what it cost parts wise.

Thanks everyone in advance for all your help. And thank you to all who have already helped me.

Here are some pictures of what I've polished.

Does anyone know a good way to get rid of all the pitting?

OK so the project might change the project. Looking at my parts list and what I have to do I see the I could spend upwards of 1200+ well I found a bike on craigslist for 1200 with 4,500 miles on it. I'm going to call them shortly and see what the story is. I might have some parts to sell if it all works out.

So searching on Ebay last night I found an '80 KZ100g1 Classic for sale of 1300. I am going to look at it as soon as I get off from work. I guess I will be changing bikes soon. The bike looks to be in good shape. It has 37,000 miles on it which is about 20,000 less than mine. This is the FI model. It looks very nice.

Here's a picture

I will be bringing my Compression tester and tools with me to give the bike a good once over before I purchase it.

So I might have some kz900 A4 parts for sale here real soon. You guys will be the first to know what parts I'll have available. But the carbs are staying with me just in case I want to switch to them instead of fuel injection. Other than that let me know if you guys are looking for something.

Ok so after a long harsh long year last year I finally pulled my head out of my backside and start work on the 900. I have decided to do a street fighter look. I already have fork and a swing arm from a '92 Honda VFR 750. Today me and my friend tore the complete bike apart today. Here's some picks of the Swing arm and fork.









I will have picture of the pegs I pulled off of the bike tomorrow. It's a good thing they look good so I can user them. Especially for the right side since the master cylinder mount to it.

I'm hoping by tomorrow I'll have her on two.

Well it seems like it was a bit hasty to say I would have it on two so quickly. We ran into an issue with mounting the swing arm. Seems it will not fit in the frame without widening the frame about 3/4 of an inch. That is an option I am thinking about. We did make some mounts out of 3/8th inch steal that we tact up on the back side of the frame. This extend the wheel base about 6 1/2 inches total. This would be the easiest route to go but I don't think I want the bike that long. I'll have pictures tonight of the temp mounts.

I'm pretty sure we are going to have to widen the frame to get the wheel base where I want it. I'm not too worried about just going to be some work figuring how far to bend out each side of the frame. I'm pretty sure that if I bend them out evenly on each side I can just make bushing on my buddy's lathe that will provide the proper spacing in the frame to have wheel on center. The really nice thing is that the swing arm pin has a screwing adjustment pin for the right side. I can make fine adjustments to center the wheel and see how much spacing I need on the left side.
I'm going to make the bushing and then have the threads tapped into it so I can make all the adjustments.

We did figure out what to do with the fork though. Luckily the donor forks pin is slightly smaller than the KZ's. Me and my buddy are going to press out the stem on both. Bore out the VFR's lower triple to accept the larger kz stem and get it welded back up. Once that is done it's new roller bearings and all will be right with the world...At least front end wise.

I want to take the time to thank all the people on this forum who have have already been there before and posted about it. For sure OMR for giving me the inspiration to start the project in the first place. Your bike is beautiful and I hope mine looks half as good as your's does. Testarossa, I am definitely stealing your brake light idea from you for sure. Porchev, your use of a single sided swing arm gave me the idea for my my read suspension. Thank you guys and everyone else here on the site. You guys have been a huge help and an inspiration.

I know he won't read this but I wanted to thank my friend Jeff from Premier Trikes/KCE Industries. Without his help and guidance on the fabrication, welding, and tools that I do not have, this project would not be possible. He build's trikes from the ground up using Chevy Vortech v6's as the power plants. If you are in the Wichita KS area and need something fabricated he's the guy to go to. So in lew of pictures from my project here is some of the things that he has done.