KZ650 Hydraulic Clutch

Weird things happen when you stare at your bike too long.  The previous owner had ditched the electric starter, leaving a gaping hole in the side cover. The mismatched / road-rashed levers looked goofy. I had just installed an APE HD clutch and push rod roller kit. And there was an Honda RC51 clutch slave cylinder in my parts bin... 







 

A "nice" uprising sun Japanese war flag design.
Who made this hydraulic sprocket cover???

Thanks, I designed it in SolidWorks (top picture) and my buddy machined it out of 6061 aluminum

Can you duplicate this for a KZ 900/1000 sprocket cover???
I like the design and want to do a hydraulic clutch conversion on my Z1???

I only have access to my KZ650 for design work. If I come across a Z1 I'll try to borrow it long enough to scan the motor and pull dimensions! 

Hey Grant, if you're still active on here by chance, could you send me a drawing with the bolt pattern of the kz650 clutch cover? Thinking about using a zx9 slave on mine.

Saablord wrote: Hey Grant, if you're still active on here by chance, could you send me a drawing with the bolt pattern of the kz650 clutch cover? Thinking about using a zx9 slave on mine.

Egads - why? Since the maintenance and potential failure rate of a hydraulic clutch makes it much less desirable on a KZ650 than a cable clutch, what is the reason to switch? Ed

Saablord wrote: Hey Grant, if you're still active on here by chance, could you send me a drawing with the bolt pattern of the kz650 clutch cover? Thinking about using a zx9 slave on mine.

I had real problems trying to get a ZX9r set up working on my Z1000. I spent ages messing around with the spacing,moving it out and moving it in trying to find the sweet spot. Couldnt do it. The reason,I was told, was that there wasnt enough travel in the ZX9r slave cylinder. I was advised to try a Ducati unit. Dont know how true this is but In the end,I got fed up with it and went back to the original cable set up.
If you get it working,Id be very interested in how you manage it.

Scirocco wrote: ...I like the design and want to do a hydraulic clutch conversion on my Z1???

One of these would be a lot simpler:

cb900f wrote:

Scirocco wrote: ...I like the design and want to do a hydraulic clutch conversion on my Z1???

One of these would be a lot simpler:

Link doesnt work for me.

I have a heavier clutch and i wanted to give hydraulic a shot as i've never used one before.

Hey Saablord, I can send you dxf or step files - let me know if you can work with those.

I haven't had any problems with the hydraulic clutch in last two years and it worked first try (but I did spend a fair bit of time reverse engineering all the components first). I'll agree it has greater potential for catastrophic failure than a cable, but I have no more cable to lube or adjust

This hydraulic unit was used by Honda for the better part of a decade, so I guess I'll trust it to work and have replacement parts. Not that any of this is reason to do the switch. I really just did it so see if I could.

I'm not sure that style actuator linked will be that simple since we don't have that nice lever arm on our bikes

Hey Saablord, I can send you dxf or step files - let me know if you can work with those.

I use Inventor so either would work... send both? thank you! It will save me so much time.

I'm not sure that style actuator linked will be that simple since we don't have that nice lever arm on our bikes

...Yeah that style of slave (i opened the link in a new tab... now it works) would have to be mounted to the lever on the existing clutch rod actuator... sounds complicated and ugly.

I really just did it so see if I could.

hahaha. right there with you.