'80 KZ750 Twin - Project:WARHORSE

im not going to lie... it took the almost finished product to inspire the name.


i just couldn't see past that purple mess that came into your garage lol
 
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Holy masking! That must of been tedious. Project looks great.
 
yeah, it took me about 2 cigars and a six pak to do each wheel. those are measurements of time, right? still had some little spots that werent covered that I had to use paint thinner on afterwards. not much though.


Thanks for the compliment.


Currently, I'm waiting for my friend to take the clip-ons off his bike so I can use them on this thing. as soon as i get those I'll be able to throw the front end together and update some more. Ive been working on other projects recently and this has kinda taken a back burner. shame, since it looks like its pretty close to being back together.
 
OK! finally been doing some work on this thing again. lets see..


got the clip-ons, tried to put them on the top of the fork tubes above the top triple tree, but the cables got in the way of the gauges. Now they're underneath the top triple which makes the riding position quite low. oh well, thats where they fit and it looks cool.


Speaking of the gauges, I cut off the mounting studs and drilled holes where they were and mounted them underneath the top triple to make them match up with the lowered headlight and bring everything closer together. looks ok, but the tach cable doesnt like bending in that new lowered way. cant seem to find a way to reroute it so ill have to see if it works.


Threw the throttle cables on, routing wasnt too bad but there is a lot of resistance in the movement and it doesnt snap shut, or close at all for that matter. I'll take them off again, throw some chain lube down them and see if i can find a slightly straighter way to route them. not too worried about it.


tucked up all the wiring under the seat pan and mounted the capacitor under the rear of the tank. its the perfect spot. Ive been using black hockey tape to hide wires by taping them to frame tubes. with the flat black paint you can barely notice it, and when you do it looks cool. win/win/win. I also had to splice in the left hand control from my cb360 because i couldnt find the original one that came off the bike. i looked for 2 days for it and cleaned my whole garage in the process.. nothing. I hate cutting off factory connectors if i dont have to, but i had to. spliced it all in, doesnt match the factory right hand side switch, but its not terribly out of place. 20 minutes after i finished that i found the original one. fuck me.


I have to swap out the rear hub with another one I happen to have. its so corroded that the brakes dont move. Turns out i also lost the little nut/end piece that goes on the the brake linkage and acts as the adjustment at the rear hub. anybody have one? if not ill just get a nylock nut from lowe's.


The chain had like 20 broken links so i used a chain from a friends kz750 after he switched to a colored one. worked out well i thought.


The caliper has squeezed the pads together for some reason (i probably pulled the lever) and now i cant get it to slip over the rotor. I assume I can take the outside pad off and use a c-clamp to open up the gap. gatta get around to that soon.


I finally took the starter off. a punch and some light taps with a 10# sledge and it came right out. the starter sprocket and chain were removed a while ago. made a little block off plate out of some really thing sheet aluminum i had laying around, attached it with rtv and then sprayed the area engine color. looks better.


I have to move the front turns/running lights lower because theyre in the way of using the levers right now. have to get a couple clamps from a friend who says he lost them. i know where things are in his garage more than he does so we'll see how "lost" they are.


oh yeah, and the kick start lever is stripped out. corroded the splines right off. need one of those too, now.


some pics for ya guys:


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got some work done again last night. swapped out the rear hub for the good one and all is good with braking now. put the pipes on, adjusted the throttle cables, filled the oil, put the tank on, threw some gas in it, aaaaaand... no spark. well, very little weak spark on the left side and none on the right. hmm... may its just hard to kick over and needs a couple good engine turns in a row. I know! I'll ride it down my steep driveway, pop the clutch at the bottom and... almost sounds like one cyl wanted to fire. ok, so same thing, weak spark on one side, none on the other.


Later I'm going to try jumping it with a good battery, then check out the points gap and everything under that cover. If that doesnt yield a result I may take the left side control off and put the stock one on, and also remove the ignition switch and just run some toggles. I didnt have a key for the ignition switch, so i disassembled it and took the tumblers out, then put it back together.


not sure what else to do if none of that works. how do you check to see if the coil or stator is bad?
 
great build love the motor color what was it gun metal gray. the acid trick for the rust is gonna helpwith next project so thanks oh yeh i live in ny so next summer maybe we can get a ride going
 
Go ahead with the hockey tape. I also taped up most of the visible wiring with it. Its a new staple in my tool box now.


The engine color is gun metal engine enamel, duplicolor i think. what ever brand advance auto parts carries in a shinny silver can. its got a distinctively green tinge to it just so ya know.


I'm all about getting a ride going. I dont know nearly enough guys who ride something other than an HD.
 
Well, since the right frame color is just as important as the color of the hockey tape if you want the same effect, I guess i should tell you guys that its duplicolor brand engine enamel in Flat Black.


I wanted to take off the grips and just use the tape on the bars, but my friend talked me out of it saying that it gets gummy after a while. anyone have an idea of what else I could use for the same effect? i was thinking maybe a leather steering wheel wrap or something.
 
I wonder if you cold do some kind of clear coat over the tape. Might even try a thick polyurethane or something similar.
 
that gave me an idea. I could just dip the RH bar end and the throttle in that stuff that you use to recoat the handles of pliers. it wont have the same look, but it would be minimal as all hell. maybe wrap them first then dip them. hmm...
 
I have done that with knife and machete handles before, and I don't know if it would stand up to the constant twisting force. It wears well, but don't stick for shit. Have to agree that, if you tried it, it would look bad ass.
 
bolted everything up the other night to see if I could start her. She fired once or twice in the hour of kicking I did. It was weird, I had the points cover off so I could see if it was sparking and after I let it sit for a couple minutes I would get a fat blue spark, next kick would get a small blue spark, then nothing if I didnt let it sit again. hmmm... any help on this issue would be appreciated. I'm pretty stuck as to why its doing that. Bad coil maybe? Remember that I'm running a 9000mfd cap in place of a battery. Might be a little small, but it should still work with the lights off.


Well either way I had to take everything apart. The gas started eating a hole in whatever I used to seal the hole in the tank. So I got the real gas tank repair putty this time and have to fix it.


Tore the carbs apart to see about lowering the float level so I dont spill more gas on my freshly painted motor. I had a buddy clean and rebuild them for me. Now they're missing a main jet. Great. $40 later I have a full assortment of main and pilot jets coming in the mail. Should be here tomorrowish.


I've been staring at the factory LH control since I found it and tonight I finally had enough and swapped it on. It looks so much better than the mismatching honda one. Really fits with the look of the bike too.


I had a couple other little things I was going to do but the tail light socket I bought is the wrong one, and I dont want to use my angle grinder this late at night to fab up the front turn signal mounts and wire wheel the tank.


Speaking of the front turns, I found the other part of the bracket that my friend said was lost. Took me all of 2 minutes to locate it in his garage in the place he left it, laugh.


Sorry for the lack of pics, but it just didnt look like progress was made. If I get the jets early enough tomorrow (before the rain comes) I'll slap everything on the bike and take some glamour shots outside. If I dont beat the rain, you'll have to wait until the weekend. Not that anyone's really waiting for this, but you just might be surprised by how well this bike turned out stance and flow wise.
 
Ok, pics today, but not the ones i promised. Instead I just have crappy cell phone pics in the garage.

The jets didnt come in so the carbs arent on. I did button up a ton of stuff that just needed to be done. lets see...

I got the controls mounted to the bars positioned the bars. that was yesterday, but I took a pic anyway.
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After that I made the front turn signal mounts for the stock turn signals. They hit the bars in the stock location so I used these bar clamps and some little pieces of angle aluminum, painted them and there ya go. They dont look great, but theyre pretty hidden.
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I finished connecting all the wiring in the headlight and installed it. Here's what the front end looks like now. I think I'm going to run it without a fender, but I'm not 100%.
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I also repainted the tank after I sealed (hopefully) the pinholes that were in it. While I was at it I took the seat off and gave it a fresh coat, too. not sure if i mentioned this before but a friend helped me out a couple weeks back with some stuff on this bike and basically finger-painted the tank and seat cowl with oil. I sprayed them pretty much in the dark, so there are some rattle can lines but no sags or runs, so I'm ok with it for now.

But yeah, This is what it looks like with the tins on it.
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glam shots with a better camera (so you can see all the little things I messed up on) and outside of the garage are coming as soon as the jets come in the mail.

Edit: just got an email that they shipped my jets today via pony express, so I should see them in 8-10 days.
 
ok, HERE are the pics i promised (my friend is kind of a bad photog, but they didnt come out terrible):


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She doesnt run yet. a buddy who has done some extensive work on his kz440 is gonna help me set the dwell and timing tonight. fingers crossed.
 
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