'78 KZ1000 Ugly Duckling

Holy flap disks, Batman!!!

Yeah. Buying them online in bulk saves a ton of money. They're no-names, but they seem to work just as well and last just as long (that is to say, not all that long) as the ones that cost five bucks a pop at the local hardware store.

I managed to get a little work done last night and today. I pulled the swingarm and torque bar off, soaked them in a 1:1 solution of Simple Green, and scrubbed them with up. Then I busted out the poor man's powder coat

 

and I think the results look pretty okay

   

Also into the Simple Green went the fork tubes. After a ton of sanding and polishing, this is what I got:

 

That left me with just enough time to mess around with the rear brake. I got it resurfaced at a local shop, and decided to drill it out. I came up with a new version of the pattern I made for the front discs that's a little busier: the front ones each have 45 holes, but the rear one has 60. 

 

That's about it for now. I'm waiting for some Progressive springs and a set of rear shocks (I was inspired by 750 R1's build to get the very same set of Ohlins copies), and then I can start putting stuff back together.

I hope it is just photo distortion, because that rotor does not look ok. Is it actually flat all the way around?

wrote:

I hope it is just photo distortion, because that rotor does not look ok. Is it actually flat all the way around?

It does look like there was a lot of tool chatter during the cutting/grinding.  

For the record,  truedisk.net/ does really fantastic work and his prices are very reasonable.

You can see some pictures in this tread:   kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/615972-doh...resh?start=24#852759

 

Yep what he said. Truedisk 

 

 

+2 on Truedisk

It is photo distortion—kind of. I had it resurfaced right before I drilled it out. It does have some odd swirl marks on it, not at all what you would expect from a brake lathe, but it's nice and flat. Unfortunately, I cleaned off the glue I used to stick my template on with brake cleaner, and then followed that with a Scotchbrite disc on a die grinder that left dopery looking swirl marks, so the ugly marks on there are totally my bad. I could be happier about the way it looks, but not enough to have it redone, especially considering there's only about .1mm left before it reaches its minimum thickness. When I replace it (because it doesn't have another resurfacing left in it), I'll go with Truedisc—those pics look fantastic.

Meanwhile, I cleaned up the wheels

 

I wanted to doll them up a little, but I was kind of at a loss as to how until I remembered some stuff I've had taking up shelf space for at least a decade:

 

I think I got this stuff at a yard sale, and I had some real misgivings about how it would perform since it's so old, but I prepped the wheels and sprayed the "copper plate" paint and clear right over the black and the bare metal alike. I think it came out pretty okay, although I keep thinking how much it would look at home on a '77 Monte Carlo:

 

Now I just need to find a horn that plays "La Cucaracha"...

Hi Buzz, it's probably worth scraping the paint of the mounting face for the discs on the front wheel, depending how thick the paint is its can cause the discs to run "out of true" and give you a vibration through the lever 

Will do—thanks.

wrote:

Hi Buzz, it's probably worth scraping the paint of the mounting face for the discs on the front wheel, depending how thick the paint is its can cause the discs to run "out of true" and give you a vibration through the lever 

+1

While waiting for parts, I went after the seat some more. I decided I didn't lile the padded piece; I had laid that up on the original, steel version of the pan/cowl, so it didn't match the shape of the fiberglass version perfectly. I filled in the access hole in the cowl that I had initially thought was a cool idea but then decided was dumb (it's remarkable how often that happens) and then drilled out the rivets holding the Dzus clips onto their bases so I could rivet them directly into the fiberglass cowl.
 
 

With that done, I was able to lay up the upholstery base. Then I glued some repurposed floor mats on it:
 

It's getting close to the moment when I have to figure out the upholstery. I've got a good machine (Tacsew T111-155) in the shop, but I haven't run any kind of sewing machine since I had home ec in junior high, back when great lizards roamed the Earth...