'82 KZ440 build - the obsession

Long time follower of this site, it's been a great source of inspiration throughout my build.

I thought it was about time I posted a posthumous build thread so I hopefully feed some of that inspiration back into the community. This is my first bike, I've been a car mechanic for 13 years and never really had any great interest in bikes until I found this site.

Anyway, I picked this up through a friend of a friend back in October 2015 but didn't really start the build in earnest until I pulled out the engine back in March last year.













And here's a few teasers of what she looks like now to keep you interested ;D

Whoooaaa there! This thread needs a porn warning - my Y fronts just exploded!!! ;D

Pics and tell, pics an tell, pics and tell!

Inviato dal mio GT-I9505 utilizzando Tapatalk

That looks like a Z440. We never got that in the USA. Closest we got to a "standard" was the KZ440G (very rare here) and the KZ440B (spoke wheels, front drum brake; usually harder to find as it was considered a cheap bike in its day so not preserved like others). We got many, many more KZ440 LTDs.

Rick cb650 sc said:

Pics and tell, pics an tell, pics and tell!

Inviato dal mio GT-I9505 utilizzando Tapatalk

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Ya, don't be a tease.


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Hahaha, all in good time. I should've started this thread from the beginning but this was time consuming and I really wanted to get it going for Summer (I live in New Zealand).

I'm pretty sure this is a KZ440, I've still got the badges from the fairings, I'll have to take a look. Plus I have the original manual for it which says KZ440. I'm actually amazed over how many different variants of the model that were released over such a small time period.

Anyway, the guy I bought this from had been playing around with this for a while and came to the conclusion the carbs were the cause of the issue. He replaced the original carb with a pair of mikuni VM32's and still couldn't get it running right.

I probably spent my weekends over the next couple of month's trying to tune these and waiting for different jets to arrive. In the end, I went back to basics and checked the compression only to find I was down on one cylinder.

After pulling the head and barrel off I found the rings had broken and had stacked up on each other and damaging the recess in the piston at the same time.





Turns out that parts aren't too common for these. Obviously as Zap said there aren't too many around. After about a month of searching the net, I stumbled across a company in Germany that sold them. And I only found them by putting the original part number into ebay as it was all in German.

So while I tinkering around with the carbs, I got the fuel tank painted and made a start with the electronics tray and the seat.

My whole ethos with this build is to try and make it look as retro as possible, and I hate wasting things so I wanted to retain as many original parts as I could.

I found a logo that was used by Kawasaki aircraft in the 60's iirc. I matched the blue stripe with my helmet and picked an orange to match the one in the logo.

Dummying up the logo on the tank



Logo was sign-written and then clearcoated over. Finished tank with helmet



I then got a sheet of steel folded and welded at the local engineers and a super small lithium-ion battery from super-b



Was a bit of a tight fit fitting all the gubbins into such a small space!!



I struggled to get u-bend with the right radius for the tube size I wanted so I bent the ends of the tube out and welded them to the frame.



So in my first version of the seat, I cut out a section of plywood, soaked it in water then ratchet-strapped it to the frame to get the shape that I wanted. I then glued a few layers of sleeping roll mat foam, trimmed and shaped it and covered it in fake leather.





As you can seem, the hoop and seat look pretty rubbish, I wasn't happy with how it looked and it was at this stage that I realised I needed new pistons and rings.

I'm in. Love the paint.

diggerdanh said:

I'm in. Love the paint.

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Cheers you're 400's looking pretty smart

Now that I'd managed to find some replacement pistons, it was time to give the engine a wee spruce up.

I took a brilo pad to the block, it took a while to get all that grime of, but as I began to learn with this project, good things take time.





Valves were ground in, and I treated the head to a mild port and polish



Head and barrel were then vapour blasted and the barrel was sent off for a rebore for the bigger pistons. It was my first time getting something vapour basted, and I couldn't believe the result!!







The fins were then filed and sanded back ready to be polished. I decided to use Por15 after being recommended it by my step-dad who uses it for his motor rebuilds on his race cars. I was looking for a gun metal colour, which unfortunately they didn't have in their engine enamel. The closest they had was factory manifold grey for painting exhaust manifolds.

Hard to see but the brush marks didn't set into themselves, but I think the light brush marks kind of suit the bike.

Wow!Beautiful!

Would you be so nice to give some infos about your carbs?I might also go down the same road,the stock diagphram carbs suck...

Nice.

Ryan Stecken said:

Wow!Beautiful!

Would you be so nice to give some infos about your carbs?I might also go down the same road,the stock diagphram carbs suck...

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Yeah, will do. The guy I got the bike from said he got the carbs from dime city cycles pre-jetted for the bike. I need to adjust the float level over the weekend so I'll find out what jets are in it.

Epic tank


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badgerkz440 said:

Yeah, will do. The guy I got the bike from said he got the carbs from dime city cycles pre-jetted for the bike. I need to adjust the float level over the weekend so I'll find out what jets are in it.

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Thanks!What would be interesting if they are straight fit to the stock rubber boots on the motor and what kind of gas grip you are using!

Ryan Stecken said:

Thanks!What would be interesting if they are straight fit to the stock rubber boots on the motor and what kind of gas grip you are using!

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The stock rubber boots don't fit the carbs, they don't seat properly. Dime city didn't list any directly for this bike, but the boots listed for the CB350, 350 and 500T models bolted straight on without any modifications. In terms of gas grip - I'm asuming you mean the twist grip? I just used the factory grip and a 2-into-1 cable supplied with the carbs

It's been a while since my last update, have been busy and bought a new project (car this time)

So I decided to leave the cylinder head off the engine as it's a bit of a prick to put in and I didn't want to scratch the paint on installation. Side covers were polished. This was really ball breaking work with some heavy pitting going on. I used different grades of wet'ndry paper. Starting with 100 grit, progressing down to 1000 grit with a final polish. I reckon about 8-10 hours of work went into the largest cover.

Before:


After:


Now with the engine taken care of I could focus on the frame. All the lugs and unnecessary brackets were cut of, as were the mounts for the pillion foot pegs/exhaust. For the hoop, I cut the frame right back to about half an inch past the rear shock mounts. I cut a section out of the sides of the mounts and folded the metal in and welding it all together. Where the spring for the rear brake pedal was mounted, I cut the frame at an angle and welded some sheet in there.





As I mentioned earlier, I couldn't get a hoop made with the right radius for the frame so I cut the u-bend in half and welded a straight section in there.

badgerkz440 said:

The stock rubber boots don't fit the carbs, they don't seat properly. Dime city didn't list any directly for this bike, but the boots listed for the CB350, 350 and 500T models bolted straight on without any modifications. In terms of gas grip - I'm asuming you mean the twist grip? I just used the factory grip and a 2-into-1 cable supplied with the carbs

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Interestingly enough, on my KZ400 I was able to use the stock boots with VM30's. Or at least I think I am, I haven't started it up yet. They fit fairly tight and seem to seal well. I guess if they don't work I'll order the Dime City CB boots, good to know they fit.

I used this throttle cable, looks like it's the same one sold by multiple vendors. Works fine with my factory throttle grip:

http://www.power-barn.com/throttle-cable-set-universal-style-2-1-for-any-slide-style-carburetor/

alemonkey said:

Interestingly enough, on my KZ400 I was able to use the stock boots with VM30's. Or at least I think I am, I haven't started it up yet. They fit fairly tight and seem to seal well. I guess if they don't work I'll order the Dime City CB boots, good to know they fit.

I used this throttle cable, looks like it's the same one sold by multiple vendors. Works fine with my factory throttle grip:

http://www.power-barn.com/throttle-cable-set-universal-style-2-1-for-any-slide-style-carburetor/

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Play close attention to the groves on the carb and the ribs on the boots.
Some of the early Keihin boots have 2 ribs and the Mikuni carbs seem to
fit but, they are not seated all the way in.


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Nebr_Rex said:

Play close attention to the groves on the carb and the ribs on the boots.
Some of the early Keihin boots have 2 ribs and the Mikuni carbs seem to
fit but, they are not seated all the way in.


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Good to know, I think mine just had one rib. I'll be sure to check though. It's not like new boots cost a lot in the grand scheme of things so it's not a big deal.