sheatona
I void warranties.
Howdy do all, I'm new to the forums, at least as new to actively participating and wanted to officially start documenting my build as it progresses, anyway without boring everyone with long winded introductions.
The bike - 1982 Kawasaki GPZ-550
Paid - 600$ running and titled
My goal is to take this bike, clean it up and blend the vintage styling with modern technology and handeling, and having a sleek daily head turning Tron inspired speed machine, hence the grid reference in the title [obvious fanboy here] 8)
Here's the bike the day I picked it up, naturally the guy saw me off with an empty tank of gas.
First thing was first, it had a few electrical issues going on with the birds nest around the battery, and some seriously rigged up headlight, I still cant figure out how he actually had it working with everything it had going on.
I pulled the tank, seat and most of the covers and fenders to get a better look at everything and degrease all the layers of delicious cake.
The bike ran, but sputtered in the low and high rpms, I pulled the carbs off and they didnt look all that bad, they were pretty clean and everything was moving at least, but I hit them with some cleaner and soaked the upper and lower covers in degreaser, while everything was cleansing I put some new plugs, oil and oil filter in it, and picked up some new fork seals and fork oil since one of the seals blew out from strapping it down to hard on the way home, muh bad.
At this point it was at least running great, idling smooth and I could rev the motor without it wanting to die.
This was probably a good thing with the forks, as I defiantly would have been buzzing around town like a maniac instantly if it was up and ready to ride without checking over anything, but I could see the brake discs were already worn funny and were slightly grooved, so I went to check the pads and found the front right caliper was stuck closed, and the back pads were non existent, so I figured lets just go ahead and clean up the calipers, lines, and master cylinder and get some fluid from this decade pumping through the brake veins.
Calipers looked a little rough around the edges, and half the paint was chipping so I figured, why not just hit them with the sand blaster, give em a fresh coat of paint and replace the seals and give me that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing I did something safe right off the bat.
After a bath, a scrub, and having a blast.
I gave them a last wash, hit them with some alcohol and primed with high heat primer.
With my lack of fancy shop, garage.. or even driveway for that matter, you work with what you got ;D
With all this going on, I really liked the sound of the bike but it was a bit too bee-hivish at some rpms, so I pulled the muffler and took out the baffle, or whatever you want to call it.
It was covered with either a bunch of crappy layers of paint, or one very heavy crappy coat of paint, and was starting to build up some rust in areas so I just grinded and blaster it into a soon to be repainted piece of steel, I'm not sure yet but I may weld the end cap of the baffle to help keep some back pressure, but.. just not sure yet.
Today, I also managed to get my tank stripped of the old paint and smoothed out the majority of the pitting on top, it wasnt to bad honestly, but I want to make sure I only have to paint this thing once, once I get some extra cash set aside, I'm going to order a fancy pop up gas cap I found with matching weld in bung, my welding skills are not up to par yet, so I'll be having a buddy weld it up for me, I'll just cut the hold and tack it in place lol.
I also hit the petcock and hardware, so everything looks pretty much as new as it can, which I'm very happy about!
Right now I have my calipers in the oven, going through the primer curing phase, I ordered some fork boots and the caliper seals/dust seals and they should all are scheduled to be in tomorow, so hopefully the next update will have painted, installed working calipers, and have my new fork seals replaced!
Let me know what you guys think, feedback's always appreciated!
The bike - 1982 Kawasaki GPZ-550
Paid - 600$ running and titled
My goal is to take this bike, clean it up and blend the vintage styling with modern technology and handeling, and having a sleek daily head turning Tron inspired speed machine, hence the grid reference in the title [obvious fanboy here] 8)
Here's the bike the day I picked it up, naturally the guy saw me off with an empty tank of gas.
First thing was first, it had a few electrical issues going on with the birds nest around the battery, and some seriously rigged up headlight, I still cant figure out how he actually had it working with everything it had going on.
I pulled the tank, seat and most of the covers and fenders to get a better look at everything and degrease all the layers of delicious cake.
The bike ran, but sputtered in the low and high rpms, I pulled the carbs off and they didnt look all that bad, they were pretty clean and everything was moving at least, but I hit them with some cleaner and soaked the upper and lower covers in degreaser, while everything was cleansing I put some new plugs, oil and oil filter in it, and picked up some new fork seals and fork oil since one of the seals blew out from strapping it down to hard on the way home, muh bad.
At this point it was at least running great, idling smooth and I could rev the motor without it wanting to die.
This was probably a good thing with the forks, as I defiantly would have been buzzing around town like a maniac instantly if it was up and ready to ride without checking over anything, but I could see the brake discs were already worn funny and were slightly grooved, so I went to check the pads and found the front right caliper was stuck closed, and the back pads were non existent, so I figured lets just go ahead and clean up the calipers, lines, and master cylinder and get some fluid from this decade pumping through the brake veins.
Calipers looked a little rough around the edges, and half the paint was chipping so I figured, why not just hit them with the sand blaster, give em a fresh coat of paint and replace the seals and give me that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing I did something safe right off the bat.
After a bath, a scrub, and having a blast.
I gave them a last wash, hit them with some alcohol and primed with high heat primer.
With my lack of fancy shop, garage.. or even driveway for that matter, you work with what you got ;D
With all this going on, I really liked the sound of the bike but it was a bit too bee-hivish at some rpms, so I pulled the muffler and took out the baffle, or whatever you want to call it.
It was covered with either a bunch of crappy layers of paint, or one very heavy crappy coat of paint, and was starting to build up some rust in areas so I just grinded and blaster it into a soon to be repainted piece of steel, I'm not sure yet but I may weld the end cap of the baffle to help keep some back pressure, but.. just not sure yet.
Today, I also managed to get my tank stripped of the old paint and smoothed out the majority of the pitting on top, it wasnt to bad honestly, but I want to make sure I only have to paint this thing once, once I get some extra cash set aside, I'm going to order a fancy pop up gas cap I found with matching weld in bung, my welding skills are not up to par yet, so I'll be having a buddy weld it up for me, I'll just cut the hold and tack it in place lol.
I also hit the petcock and hardware, so everything looks pretty much as new as it can, which I'm very happy about!
Right now I have my calipers in the oven, going through the primer curing phase, I ordered some fork boots and the caliper seals/dust seals and they should all are scheduled to be in tomorow, so hopefully the next update will have painted, installed working calipers, and have my new fork seals replaced!
Let me know what you guys think, feedback's always appreciated!
