Wonderings about the KZ 900

[cobra23]

All good,
hey your working, that is good!!

Last Friday we brazed the steering stop on the neck, and another plate on the lower frame, for chain clearance. Now I am going over all the frame welds one more time with a round file, smoothing them all in fillets.....ohhh it's beautiful..............ahhhh ohhhhh...feeling for that perfectly smooth weld..ahhh...oops ok I'm back now...i r engineer, strange things arouse me.

I could get it to a sandblaster this friday. This weekend I will post  m a couple more photos. I am still thinking about powder coat vs. paint, so if you know a good powder coating service, i could use a tip on that.

Building the steering stop, and clearancing for the 630 chain, on an 1/8 inch offset sprocket took about 6 hours on Friday. Everything takes longer than you think it will.
Especiallu smoothing all those welds oohhhhh yeaaaaaaahhhh..oops.

[jlavallee]

The bike sounds awesome!

Jerome had some powder coating done on his ZX9 that looked pretty good so I'd drop him an e-mail and see where he got his done.

[cobra23]

Well attempted to take digital photos....

Mrs. took the card out of camera, so no photos right now.

It's all set soon as I find a sandblaster, and/ or powder coat people, arent they the purple ones? I think it will be basic blak, you know traditional.

[cobra23]

Ok so i had to borrow the camera from work...

This is a photo of the steering stop and atabilizer mounting set-up we brazed on a couple weeks ago. Ed G. a bicycle frame builder did the work for me he is a dam genious, and artist at that. The brass fillets are so cool looking I don't want to paint them, but will have to.

Today is sanblast day.

Thanks for looking!!

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[cobra23]

Dropped the Frame off at Advanced Powder Coating and sandblasting, Friday.

First I was just going to have it blasted so i could do the trusty rattlecan paint job.

They showed me a part which was powdercoated a dull silver, then clear coated. Thats 2 coats one base, then 1 clear. Ohhhh it was beautiful. So I took the plunge and in two weeks we will have another photo. The color is simular to bare metal, but shiny without looking "Pimped".

All the welds have been ground to a fillet, and polished, lots of extra gusseting. The engine will remain pretty stock, it does have a big bore (998 cc) kit in it already. Next up I will have my buddy in Washington polish the ZRX swingarm.

Would have started that today, but the dreaded Honda 90 still has scrambled wiring to deal with. Put that thing all back together, I am sure the wiring is right, and still no improvement. GRRRRRRRRRR.

[cobra23]

Here is a photo of the seat under construction.

You would think you could just run the pan down to a shop and have it recovered. Not so fast .....We did not like the "Hugeness" of the stock seat, so I cut an inch out of the pan all the way aroound, except for the area right behind the tank.

The idea being it would expose some of the frame work.

Then had it "Foamed" and drew lines out where it was kinking, so the seat guy could cut the foam where it was needed. Then make a cover for it.

Every little thing takes longer than you think it will.

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[cobra23]

Well People in Washington who haved helped a great deal, like to see the progress, so a couple months ago i took this photo.

You see I hung around with folks what are fitness nuts. I may have been one myself at one time not long ago, so ignore the pillow stuffed into the sweatshirt. They make fun of me cause I dont stay in shape much anymore. Naturally I try to over illustrate my condition. Reno I tell them is a littel more laid back than the mountains of Eastern Washington.

This is another view of the bike though, a good one I think.

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[cobra23]

OK well the day came to start it a couple months ago Nervous, I was, but everything worked fine.

All the work paid off. It was time to take it apart once more to braze the steering stop on, and get it powdercoated, or painted. The order of posting is a bit mixed up now, but there are more photo's to look at if your interested.

Most people just look at it and go, yea another KZ. He... he thing is there is a whole bunch of engineering there you gotta look to find. Exactly what we were trying to do.

Now the frame is at the powder coating place. And once again the shelves are full of KZ Parts. Eeeekkk. I gotta put it all together one more time.

[cobra23]

oops forgot to attach the photo....

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[cobra23]

The stoey of the Orange Paint.

Good friend of mine in Washington "stoppee" on PNWrider forum. He pimped out his 929. We had it stripped down to nuts and bolts. Polished everything. This bike was racing in the WMRRA series, then he turned it back into a street bike. Hundreds of hours in the project.

So we take it out he first day it is finished. Stoppee he naturally wants to see how it looks while he is riding but that is difficiult. He askes me to switch bikes, he is now on my old CBR, and I am on his 929.

Now I have ridden many other bikes which belonged to Stoppee, and never had a single mishap...till that day. Went to put my foot down at a stop,and happend to put it right in a hole next to the street. Down goes the bike. I was at a standstill and feeling extremely bad. The only damage was a 4 inch hole in the bottom of the fairing.

He ebayed another part, and I had it painted, with all the KZ parts, so there you go, the orange is all about guilt.

[cobra23]

ahhh forgot to attach photo again...I need to lay off the Scotch!

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[cobra23]

Might as well show you Stoppee's other bike. Think he has brain damage, all his stuff is orange.

This one is an 07 CBR 1000. Same deal polished, stripped own to nuts and bolts, then all put back together again.

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[z1rider]

must have some sort of citrus fetish?

[jlavallee]

Good story on the color, it adds up sort of now. To each his own but I can't see ever owning anything but green or black on a kawi. Then again, a lot of non bike people HATE the green. cest la vie.

What have you got put into the project? Sounds like a lot of time and usually the costs add up really fast or is that just when I do something?

[cobra23]

Time,

18 months away from home right in the middle of the project really slowed things down.


Well thats a tough one. It's all theropy of sorts for me. If I had to build a second one I would know exactly what fits, that experimentation takes a whole bunch of time. For example; the forks on it are the second set, because the first set was too short. All that trial and error. I bet I could build a second one in a couple months if all the parts were available, and I worked on it 40 hours weekly.

We spent a few hours just cutting all the extra crap off the frame.

Welding, brazing the gusseting I think about 15 hours, grinding and filleting the welds about 20.
Starring at it....about 20 hours. (trying to figure stuff out.) But you just do that when you feel like going out to the garage and "chillin". Then I got it all done, powder coated it and added more. So almost double those hours (the first round of improvements). It's now at powder coat for the second time.

6 or so hours just doing the fixture to get the swingarm bushings welded in. Lots of help there (the Wizard).

Polishing the motor..no way to know.

All the other stuff...no way to know, the front end, steering stem, the header the rearsets, the rear brake set-up., figuring out what bars (pro Taper) to put on, and how to mount them.

Several hours looking at different stuff to see if it would fit. We took "Stoppees" ZRX 1100 apart to see if the zrx swingarm would fit before I looked to buy one.

There was the fixture built to figure out what size the spacer on the oppisite side of the rear sprocket was needed in order to have the front and rear wheels in perfect alignment.

I bet I have about 400 hours so far. But it's mostly easy stuff, enjoyable time with other bike nuts debating what would fit and what would not.

Dollars..about 4500 so far. I promised my wife, it would only cost 1200 he  he : he. She calls it the "Defense Project" takes wayyyy too long and runs wayyy overbudget.

Added expenses like 1 Ice Cold Beer per hour of starring at the frame. Lots and lots of beer. On really tough decisions, I would employ the secret weapon........ expensive Scotch.