Recent content by c4f3 r4c3r

Hey Sam_I_Am. That is really nice work you've done with that tank. I was the owner of this bike years ago and started this thread. Obviously I ran at out steam at some point (time really). I am glad to see that the GPZ lives on! There is definitely something special about the sound of that bike...

PM'd

Well, in the "everything is for sale for the right price" sense. I'd part with it for a good offer. But it is rough, so it might be worth more to me than to someone else. And I'm no where near PA. The bike is presently in Seattle.

No, sorry. The bike has been rotting in storage. For the last year I've been a little obsessed with the dual sport thing. I intend to revive this build at some point this winter, and at least get it ridable again by spring. I'll post more when there are updates. Good luck on your GPZ build...

That looks sweet!

No update, sorry. I've been preoccupied with another bike (dual sport, completely different thing) and haven't put the time into the GPz. I hope to get back to it this summer and will revive this thread.

I considered taking a mold off of the tank and doing it in glass. But the bike came with a spare tank. And it isn't that heavy (fairly thin walled). Also, I'm learning as I go. So working with metal (i.e. welding, forming, etc.) has been a valuable part of the process. I did use some glass in...

Took the bike to Backfire Motorcycle Night last week, a monthly gathering here in Seattle for cafe/rat/vintage bikes. The bike still has a whole host of issues to be dealt with. But I couldn't wait. We made it there fine, and had a good time. But, on the way back ... I was riding home after...

Indeed. Especially when I've assembled the bike, you never know what might pop off. ;) The tires won't hold air for long, the forks are leaking considerable oil, the nose dives pretty drastically under hard braking, the rear brake bleeder valve is leaking, the carbs are dumping fuel out of...

Actually got the bike out of the garage yesterday and took it for a ride. At first it wouldn't shift out of first gear. I was convinced that it had something to do with Kawasaki's "positive neutral finder", a device that doesn't allow you to shift from first to second unless the bike is moving...

I've finished the rebuild of my custom triple tree crown, with the poured lenses for the relocated indicator lights. If you read my earlier entry you'll know that I built this once before, but at the very last moment of installation (setting the torque on the steerer clamp bolt) a chunk snapped...

My original plan was to use the bottom of the old seat foam, as it already had all of the contours of the seat pan, but sliced down and with new foam added to the top. I tried this. But the old foam was in sad shape. So I just used the new foam. I didn't cut every contour into it, but I cut out...

Everyone keeps asking me about the seat cushion. So I decided to take a stab at it. I considered sewing some ribs/scallops in the seat, and/or a transition between the top and sides. But, in the end I decided to keep it simple and just stretch a single piece of cloth, without features, as a...

All is not well in Kawasaki land. That custom triple tree crown that folks seemed to like, the one with the hand poured lenses and indicator lights, it has met with a recent tragedy. All-in-all it had turned out so well. I had invested a considerable amount of time and effort into it, including...

Because I built the rear cowl out of an old gas tank, its width wasn't a custom fit to my seat pan. So, where the remaining portion of my seat pan meets the cowl, the cowl sticks out close to an inch on each side. I decided that I wanted to do something about this transition. And, I also decided...