Kawasaki KZ 440LTD - Diary of a ugly girl

Hello to everyone

this is the story of my ugly bike, bought for 500€ in not working conditions and became in few months of hard work a pretty (I think) some kind of Brat-bob:

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian

This is about the actual condition, but until the end of the summer, I'll upgrade some little details that now are overlooked.

I'll gradually post the pics and descriptive parts of the mods (my job is very time-consuming), so be a little patient. The journey has been both hard and funny, so I think that topic will worth a visit now and then... This not because I think that my bike is super cool, but I'll post about some interesting solutions that solves some common problems of modifying this model.
One last thing: please be comprehensive with my poor English; I'm Italian and technical terms are a little hard to learn all in one time.

Story started here:

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian

As you can see, the situation wasn't very good at all... Every single part was rusted and/or dirty, but, at least, the bike was complete. Only one footrest and the exhaust seals were missing.

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian

Engine was blocked, reasone of the low price tag... I never liked easy challenges; with a bare idea of necessary efforts and patient, I accepted it. Mileage was less than expected, it must have been a simple problem and I decided to take her home with me. I still was in love!

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian

This is the very first episode of the series... I'll post asap the second part: "welcome to the garage and find out the hell of problem with the engine".

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Hi there with the second part of the diary.

Bike was at home... So the first thing to do was fixing the engine, that was blocked.

this was the starting point

One big breath and go. I didn't had done any similar job before, but with a great dose of passion and a workshop manual, I started the disassembly:

phase 1

phase 2

phase 3

phase 4

phase 5

me and my friend Andrea with the crankshaft

So, the engine was totally in pieces, so we had the opportunity to take a look at every single component to find the problem...

That was in the external part of the engine.....................

the starter motor chain gear

This ******* screw that was blocked into the side of the engine block

lovely screw...

This gave me the opportunity to clean every single part and change seals and bearings.
It took me a lot of time, but with less than 50€s I had the opportunity to restore the engine and make it work very well.

the engine again aboard

After a little bit of other minor workings (some electrical problems on the turning lights and new tyres), bike was ready to her first summer. Her last summer with this appearance... ;D

bike at the inspection

The first ride

sweet!


Stay tuned for the next episode: the first mockups and the arrival of the angle grinder!

Great retrospective build thread!
Nice to see you did get some mile in on the standard bike...
It's like dating first before going the whole hog


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LOL! Yes Alex, exactly 1800 miles in the first season have been a great date

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using DO THE TON mobile app

is the red one the final result?? This Bike looks f**ing awesome!! What did you do with the frame? I would really like some detailed Pictures of the Frame.
following...


MIchael

migs said:

is the red one the final result?? This Bike looks f**ing awesome!! What did you do with the frame? I would really like some detailed Pictures of the Frame.
following...


MIchael

Click to expand...

Yes, that is the final result (at last, for now)!
Thank you for the compliment and stay tuned with next chapters

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using DO THE TON mobile app

Hey guys, I'm back form few weeks of very hard work. This is a new episode of the diary!

So, after 4 months of ride through the local hills and mountains, summer ended with 2.000 miles done with the original bike. Winter arrived and the ugly girl started her transformation.
First step has been the about total dismantling, but with some parts of fun during it:





LOL the handlebar was horrible, but I needed to have an idea about the look of clipons or lower bar on the LTD. I wasn't happy of the rude teardown of the bike, so I decided to stop it and invest a little time with a fast mockup and get an idea of wich kind of transformation would have been the best.







Mockup confirmed my suspects: nothing good can be done on this bike without resolving the tail problem. That rising part of the frame is THE problem of this bike and have to be solved in any way.



Even if lowered, that tail is a PITA and here comes the angle grinder! Finally, the right way was taken: one simple cut gave the bike a total new look.







One problem gone and another arrived; that banana-look-like look of the central part of the frame is due to the curved tubes between tank and shock absorbers mounts... A sports bike of that years shoudn't have that lowered part, so I needed to modify the frame, at least in the visible part and in that moment I got the idea: let go the desire of "voided" look between engine and rear wheel and build a new side cover for air filter, making it a little bit bigger to cover the curved pipe as well. The new straight line would have been done with another pipe, visible over the side cover... Et voilà!







The tube cutting has been a difficult operation, as wel as welding them to the frame. Fortunately, the added pipes have only an appearance purpose, so the frame resistance has not been compromised.














that is not an hacked fire extinguisher... It's a safe built-on-purpose Co2 gas tank XD



Welding is not my best attitude... But I get what I needed (and the frame is still perfectly intact) ;D

That's all for the moment, I'll post asap with the mod of the rear brake rod and some others.

Hello to everyone, in the past months I didn't updated this topic... But now I'm back.

Last step I posted was about the tail shortening. I kept the welder warm and provided with another mod: changhing drum rod on the rear fork. I always hated the non-parallel lines in that point, so I decided to lower the rod fixing point by using a laser cut bracket and 2 spherical joints.

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian
https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian
https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian

A very quick mock-up showing the result:

https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian
https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian
https://postimage.org/index.php?lang=italian