KZ440 CUSTOM CAFE PROJECT WITH MUCH HELP NEEDED. heeeeellllp!

[rich]

hello all, ive bitten the bullet and bought a dog ugly, black, rusting, shoelace running, lumpy but running KZ440. The idea is to build rebuild and teach myself the art of the spanner, while sexifying the poor boys toy until the best and the rest hav an attack of the greens just watching me cruise by at a low, but quite torqey, but lets face it. not so speedy show, of pure chutzpah, gumption, guts and elbowgrease and a hella lota style. Am I vain? well yes, like the rest, I like the machine to be nicce. and at the most at the moment its kinda ugly. So if your'e willing to help, and I need it. Then could someone tell me what the hell I do first. Heres some questions.
1- new pipes? they're rusted lightly- is there a cafe pipe standard I can fit to a KZ440?
2- the seat has clearly got to go- I'd like to retain the ability to pillion though- where can I source seats- and how do I know they fit.
3-parts generally?ve the mechanical sense of a gerbil and some obvious and even patronising hints would probably help a lot.
4- the running. It runs its registered, but? the throttle has a fair bit of slack, the rear shocks seem spongy at best, the engine stalls easily.
5-tools- what should i buy- on a budget as basics? and then what.
I think you're all getting the idea. any brave foolhardy souls out there?

 

[HerrDeacon]

Hey rich, welcome to the site. Do you have any pics of the KZ?

As far as help, my recommendation would be to work on getting everything running correctly first before working on the cosmetics. That way you won't have to worry about ruining paint and such when working on the engine and carbs. Get it running good then make her shine My pipes on my KZ650 were rusted as well, so I wrapped the headers in fibreglass wrap and then painted the mufflers.

Also, I'm not sure if you have already done so or not, but you should visit http://kzrider.com/i. Lots of great info on KZ's there and a forum full of very knowledgeable and friendly KZ nuts. You'll get lots of help with the mechanical gremlins there. You may be able to source a downloadable manual over there too for the 440.

As for parts, I usually end up going to http://www.z1enterprises.com/. They carry lots of parts for vintage Japanese bikes.

 

[rich]

much appreciated, downloaded a manual and have fixed the throttle response and reset the suspension. Next lots of cleaning and I'll organise a 'before' photo. I'm a bit concerned as to how well paint and heat go together? Is it not a problem?
cheers
R

 

[anarki650]

For anything engine or exhaust related you'll want to use high temp paint. Look at auto parts stores for high temp engine paint or BBQ paint at a home store. These paints will stand up to the temp of the engine and exhaust. For the tank and body parts you can get away with whatever paint you want to use. +1 on hitting up kzrider.com for mechanical questions, lots of great guys over there. You'll get some good general mechanical advice here, but I'm not sure if I've seen anyone else on here with a kz440, so some specific questions might not have answers here.

If you want to keep the hinge function of the stock seat you can go the route of stripping your seat down to the pan and building a custom cafe style seat onto that, lots of different methods you can use for that. Check out the tanks and seats section here for plenty of options in full detail.

Welcome aboard!!!