Kwaka KZ750E - Long Term Cafe Project

[Cock Fist]

Some may have seen my thread asking what this baby was worth when I posted in General Discussion yesterday.
I went to see it this morning and ended up walking away with it, spending just over my original budget.

Never-the-less, this is now my long term cafe racer project.



It's a 1980 KZ750E - the air-cooled four pot cousin of the KZ750 with the parallel twin.
The bloke I bought it off said he got it from a bloke who essentially left it in his shed since the late 90s, and as a result, it only has a genuine 24,xxx KMs on the odo.
The problem was, at some point while old mate had it sitting in his shed, he raped it for a lot of it's parts, and then some time later, appeared to want to get it on the road again. As a result, the wiring has been played with, and it had one single Chinese eBay indicator dangling off it.

I got it home this afternoon, and after rearranging the garage to make room, moved it into it's new home for the foreseeable future.



Less than an hour later, I had it looking like this:



This gave me a chance to build a list of things to do.



And that's how it sits as of now.

Plans, as I'm sure you've worked out, are to go down a cafe racer path, with a dash of flat tracker style.
The factory silver will be ditched in favour of an orange/brown mixture, and if I can get my hands on a new/good used loom, I'll strip it down to the frame to get that sandblasted and powdercoated.
Engine will get the gasket kit, as you can see above, at a bare minimum. I'll inspect the rest as I go.

As I said, this is a long-term project. Reason being that I'm new to the world of two wheeled fun, so I'm going to be learning along the way. I also have at least 12 months until I can legally ride it, so luckily I will not have the temptation to ride it if it's in pieces.
I am looking forward to having it running though, as these are a kick arse bike.

I'll leave you with some of my inspirations for the project..

[buzz]

Should be fun.

Are replacement carbs (an a re-kit through them) going to cost more than the bike?

[EVOSTi]

That black one is nice.

[Gammaboy]

Kawas are the same carb spacing as air and oil cooled suzukis, carbs off of a gsxf750 (late eighties to late nineties oil cooled sports tourer) should be an improvement over the original carbs.

[Cock Fist]

Should be fun.

Are replacement carbs (an a re-kit through them) going to cost more than the bike?

Probably.
Though I'm not planning on tallying up the cost of the build. That might make me depressed.

Kawas are the same carb spacing as air and oil cooled suzukis, carbs off of a gsxf750 (late eighties to late nineties oil cooled sports tourer) should be an improvement over the original carbs.

Awesome, thanks for the tip. Carbs specifically off this motor are proving hard to find. I don't think these were Aussie delivered either?

[fat910]

Nah mate, Cafe racers are gay aye. You need to convert fuel to noise to be a real man. Just preparing you for future comments.

[Gammaboy]

Just noticed it's got konis on the back, you can rebuild them pretty easily, parts are available from Ikon in Sydney, they bought the Koni bike shock tooling and manufacturing rights in the nineties.

Basically any 80s 4cyl 750 Suzuki or Kawa carbs should do the trick, except GSXR 750, they're fucking huge. Keep an eye out for RS 34 mikunis, or smooth bore mikunis for a GS750/1000

[Cock Fist]

Nah mate, Cafe racers are gay aye. You need to convert fuel to noise to be a real man. Just preparing you for future comments.

Funnily enough I bought this off a bloke who was into his Hardly Ablesons.
He was almost going to chop it up for a cruiser. I like to think I've done my good deed for the bike gods.

Just noticed it's got konis on the back, you can rebuild them pretty easily, parts are available from Ikon in Sydney, they bought the Koni bike shock tooling and manufacturing rights in the nineties.

Basically any 80s 4cyl 750 Suzuki or Kawa carbs should do the trick, except GSXR 750, they're fucking huge. Keep an eye out for RS 34 mikunis, or smooth bore mikunis for a GS750/1000

Yeah the Konis will be staying and getting a rebuild. They seem to be in pretty good nick, so I might just give them a clean up.

Thanks for the carby recommendations. This will be a learning curve for me - I've barely ever had to deal with carbys being that I grew up with EFI.
There's just something about the way carby bikes sound though - EFI ones do nothing for me.

[itsnotagsr]

NIce project!

[Cock Fist]

I've stumbled upon a bloke in Hobart that specialises in old Z parts, so I rang him bang on 9am this morning and told him to email me price and availability for everything I need. Only thing I'm still stuck on is a set of stock carbs now.

[9triton]

cool project

ive got a 92 kwak 750 zephyr - first of the 70's look retro bikes - looks like the Z900

the zephyr has one of these kz motors with a few styling changes in the castings. in fact the wiseco 815cc big bore pistons for the KZ fit the zephyr engine.

[Cock Fist]

cool project

ive got a 92 kwak 750 zephyr - first of the 70's look retro bikes - looks like the Z900

the zephyr has one of these kz motors with a few styling changes in the castings. in fact the wiseco 815cc big bore pistons for the KZ fit the zephyr engine.

Nice. I wish they'd bring back the retro-look bikes. My SRV250 was one of them and is what made me fall in love with the older naked bikes.

[Gammaboy]

Mate of mine has something like 4 of the 12 Zephyr 1100s sold in oz. Did the 750s get a twin plug head too? (Even in the nineties these nuggets didn't have a 4 valve head).

Can't wait to see the Firestones, whitewalls and header wrap go onto this thing

[Cock Fist]

Mate of mine has something like 4 of the 12 Zephyr 1100s sold in oz. Did the 750s get a twin plug head too? (Even in the nineties these nuggets didn't have a 4 valve head).

Can't wait to see the Firestones, whitewalls and header wrap go onto this thing

Nah, single plug per cyl. She aint that fancy.

What's wrong with Firestones, whitewalls and header wrap?

[Gammaboy]

Nah, single plug per cyl. She aint that fancy.

I meant the 750 Zephyr...

Boggles my mind that Kaw kept the 8 valve motors for so long.

[9triton]

750 zephyr = 2 valve/cyl , single plug - made up till about 1996

[9triton]

also z-power - in woolongong may be able to help with parts

http://www.zpower.com.au/catalog/index.php

[Cock Fist]

So I had been holding off on going on a spending spree for this basket case until I could work out exactly when and how much a set of carbs was going to cost me.

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a set on eBay on Tuesday in Melbourne which ended tonight. No other cunt bid on them, so they were mine for $115 to my door. Bloody bargain. Even if they're shit and need to be rebuilt they're still cheap as chips - I'd seen plenty in Europe on eBay for a LOT more.

[Cock Fist]

Spent a bit more time stripping this thing down today.

Started by removing the loom and motor..


Bloody awkward motor to pull, even for 2 blokes


But she came out and I got her up on the bench to start pulling down over the next little while.
Surprisingly, only one screw so far has been rounded, which was one that was impossible to get to with a dremel until it was on the bench anyway, so I'll get that out when I start pulling it down.


First priority though is to completely strip the frame and get it off for sandblasting and powdercoating


And while that's being done, I'll be sorting through/repairing the loom

[fat910]

Making some good progress man. Once its all done you'll probably have to bug to build another.

[Cock Fist]

Making some good progress man. Once its all done you'll probably have to bug to build another.

I'm thinking the same thing. This is my first bike project, and the SRV250 which you can see the wheel of in the 3rd photo is my first bike altogether, so while this will be a learning curve, it'll no doubt be the precursor to yet another expensive habit.

[uuheels]

Please keep the pics coming...

[Cock Fist]

Please keep the pics coming...

Will do. There shouldn't be any shortage of those - I like to keep photo records of my projects

[Cock Fist]

Has anyone got any experience re: sandblasting and powdercoating a frame, swingarm and fork tree brackets?

Local mob guesstimates ~$300 and 1 week to get it all done. Is this pretty reasonable?

And what's the usual done thing re: compliance plate? Do they just mask it up somehow, or do they remove it altogether?

[9triton]

ID plate - hmmm- good question - nothing screams dodgy more than pop rivets to replace it- but then again a 35 year old bike ..who really cares.

lol no answer there!

have you got all your frame mods done ? ie brackets/ chopped tail unit etc- as you cant easily repair powder coat

also make sure you protect any threaded holes - if you can stick old bolts in there to keep powder coat out of the threads.

and other plain holes will need powder coat cleaning out of them .

a trick for engine removal /replacement is to lie engine on its side on bench and feed to frame over it and bolt up enough to support it when tip up the frame.

... helps if you have a bare frame with no other bits on it , I guess....

[Gammaboy]

Back in the late 70's early 80's they were only riveted on anyway - drill the rivets, powder, pop-rivet.
Don't leave it on while they blast it - had a project bike where the ID plate had been fucked by being blasted (Bought it as a basket case)

[9triton]

the 70's ID plates I have seen are put on with solid rivets- not pop rivets

[Gammaboy]

the 70's ID plates I have seen are put on with solid rivets- not pop rivets

That's great to know for a rivet-counter's wet dream resto, but for the rest of us, who gives a fuck?

[Gammaboy]

They're also not actually a solid rivet like was used pre-poprivets, but a hammer drive rivet:

[9triton]

That's great to know for a rivet-counter's wet dream resto, but for the rest of us, who gives a fuck?

which is what i said in my first post .



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