KZ400 Resto-mod

freemonty

New Member
I've been meaning to do a build thread for a while even though the bike is basically done by now. So I'm just gunna start this damn thing and take it one step at a time. It may not be chronological, it may not even be logical but I think it's worth sharing because I learned a shot load and I think I've got some good info to share about things I've seen other people struggle with.

So here's the story. Bought the bike in 2012 from a nice man while I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Craigslist find, 9000miles, wasn't running, cost....$400. 1976 KZ400-D3. The thing that drew me to this bike was the condition of the metal. No corrosion anywhere, perfect chrome. It might have seen some sun from the faded paint, but it looked like it rarely saw rain.

First pic of many. Rolling it into my then apartment to get it running.
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And here's a tease of how things look about 5 years later.
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Nice looking bike. Are your modifications cosmetic or have you done anything mechanical?
I had to ask since I'm a gear head. In the automotive world a resto mod is stock looking with
drivetrain and/or chassis changes.


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Nebr_Rex said:
Nice looking bike. Are your modifications cosmetic or have you done anything mechanical?
I had to ask since I'm a gear head. In the automotive world a resto mod is stock looking with
drivetrain and/or chassis changes.


.
Oh yes my friend. Resto-mod is the correct nomenclature. She is heavily modified. I don't want to just list everything because I plan to go through a bunch of it, so you'll have to wait!



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First update is kind of a boring one. After I got the bike into my apartment I did the standard "back to life" treatment. Although at the time I'd never done any of the stuff before besides an oil change. This is where KZ400.com came down from the internet heavens to bless me with a wealth of knowledge that I might some day hope to retain a small percentage of. If you own a kz400 or 440 and you haven't spent time on kz400.com then why are you even riding motorcycles? You will hear me praise this resource throughout the entire build. Without it, there's a good chance this bike never gets restored, ends up not running and collecting dust in my or someone else's garage.

So anyway I rebuilt the stock Keihin CV carbs, changed the fork and brake fluid, put a new set of Shinko tires on there, changed points and oil and filter and with a new battery she fired right up.

Couple notes here:
1. It's difficult to source the correct rebuild kit for the stock keihins. All the kits I've found include some correct parts and some not. I think the important one to change is the fuel valve aka needle and seat as that is an item that wears over time, and of course any gaskets or o-rings. All the carb rebuilding info can be found on good ole Kz400.com.
2. Stock tire size is 3.25-18 up front and 3.50-18 in back, but I put a 110/90-18 on the back with the Shinkos. That's about 4.33" wide and it fits just fine.
3. Holy crap, the fork and brake fluid were disgusting, it looked and smelled like sewer water mixed with clam juice.


The tank was in great shape on the inside so I just gave it a rinse, cleaned out the petcock bowl and away we go.

Here's the bike way back then:
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Then I ran into my first and still only real issue the bike has ever given me. On my second or third ride the bike stranded me. No push start no kick start nothing. After some digging around I found the battery was completely dead. I ran a couple tests from the shop manual and realized I was only getting something like 10volts at the battery at idle, so I decided to change the voltage regulator to a more modern solid state unit from Oregon motorcycle parts. Put that on and still not charging correctly. After scratching my head for a while.I finally found out that my stator wires had gotten eaten up by the chain on the front sprocket. There's a small bracket on the engine case that holds these 3 yellow wires up tight to the case and away from the chain. The bracket had loosened or bent and the wires got chewed, hence, no charging. I wonder if this is why the previous owner had parked the bike in the first place….???

Anyway, unfortunately, I don't have pictures of this issue, but I taught myself how to solder and resoldered the wires and wrapped them up nicely. Success! I started getting about 13v at the battery at idle, which is not the spec (it's supposed to be 14.5v), but it was enough to keep the battery charged appropriately for like 4 years of riding. This will end up biting me in a later post, but at the time it was not an issue.



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Nebr_Rex said:
Rev it up to 4000 rpm and then check voltage.


.
My build thread is in reverse so I'm just recalling what happened 4 years ago, but fwiw I followed the shop manual procedure and tested at the appropriate rpm levels and it was always returning 12.8-13.4.


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canyoncarver said:
I love the ol' hardbag setup for these. I'd love to find a set for my 400.
I found mine on eBay, but I’ve seen parts bikes of the 77 KZ400 A1 (the one with the bags and fairing).


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So I already broke my schedule of once a week posts but maybe once a month is more like it.

It was fall of 2016 that I decided to start on the restoration. I had toyed with the idea of adding a second or third bike but I thought I could create a bike that met all my needs based on the kz400.

First up was the cosmetics. The kz400 has pretty good lines for a late 70s bike, and I love some of the weird color schemes, so I decided to keep the bike mostly looking stock but add a few elements and upgrade the paint. As is common on the KZ my paint on the tank and the side covers was slightly mismatched. I like the teal-turquoise-blue stock color so I decided to stay with that.

And then came the side bags. In 77 kawi added a deluxe model called the A1 that came with fiberglass side bags in chrome brackets, a full fairing, highway bars, and a rear cargo rack. Incidentally, the addition of the side bags necessitated moving the rear turn signals from the license plate bracket to the bag brackets. The A1 came in rust orange with a different pin striping scheme than the 76 models.

My bike already had the 77 cargo rack added by a previous owner and about 4 years ago I spotted a set of the bags in decent shape with the brackets on eBay and scooped them up for maybe $140.

When the time came for repainting I now had to get those bags and brackets up to par with the rest of the bike. That meant re-chroming the brackets and prepping the fiberglass. I found out the hard way that rechroming is not cheap!! It cost about $600 to rechrome the brackets, the bag hinges and latches.

I took my tank, side covers, headlight bucket and side bags to a local paint shop called the paint spot. I was not able find anywhere that could provide original paint mixes for the kz400 or pinstriping kits. I guess that’s he trouble with restoring a less than famous model. But the paint spot does great work and they were able to take some scans of my tank to get a baseline and then custom tweak the mix to get to what they thought it should like. We also added some additional metallic than what probably came from the factory. For the pinstriping I had to select colors from a book to match the orange-yellow and light green of the stripes from the original 76 color scheme. Even though I was going with the color scheme of the 76 I preferred the striping pattern from the 77A1 so paint spot hand striped to that pattern.

To finish things up we touched up the original badging. In the end I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out. The paint is fantastic in person, the chrome is now bright all the way around and even though it looks like it could be stock, I doubt kawi ever put out anything of this quality from the factory. Here’s some pictures:


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The 77 A1 from which my bags and cargo rack came.
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Early pic of my bike with the faded and mismatched paint.
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Cool original kawi stock photo. Even back the paint looks a little mismatched doesn’t it?
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Pics of new paint and bags with different striping scheme.
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Nice job, I'd ride that accross the country no problem. I toured for a whole season on a CM400, not nearly as nice as that.
 
Well isn't that a looker. Love the colour and the bags balance everything out very nicely. Great job
 
sosedoff said:
What kind of mufflers are those? Im looking to get something like that, looks really great on the bike
Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for you. They were on the bike when I bought it, I’ve never found any identifying markings and I’ve never seen pictures of these exact mufflers anywhere. Sorry.


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