16" vs 18" wheels

no one ever road raced z-1s anyhow ...whew...o.k

:laugh:

I believe that the Z1 and the rest of the KZ family was road raced, by the way.

The 18" rear wheel and 19" front were considered standard 30 years ago. The 16" rear wheel was added to give the bike a "custom" look along with the stepped seat. It was an attempt to compete with Harley and the other OEMs who also had "customs".

The 18" rear wheel and 19" front offer a more compliant ride as well as better ground clearance than do the LTD set up. I have two KZ900s and one has the LTD suspension and the other the standard. The standard definitely has a bit more ground clearance and the LTD sits lower. There isn't a super-dramatic difference in handling or feel, by the way. I definitely like a flat seat much better than a stepped seat. The worst riding situation is where there is a smallish diameter front tire; like a 15" or 16". They seem to pick up every little bump.

Exitpupil wrote:

...Why would Kawasaki use 16" rear wheel on a 79 KZ1000LTD and 18" on a 79 MKII 1000?...am considering going 16" to help lower the bike....

For purposes of comparison, my 1973 Z1 rear Lester is currently fitted with 110/90-18 Bridgestone Spitfire (closest available to oem 4.00-180) and 1976 KZ900-B1 LTD rear oem Morris is currently fitted with MT90B16 Dunlop 491 Elite II (closest available to oem MT90-16T).

Both measure virtually same distance from center of rear axle to garage floor with bikes held balanced and level, being slightly over 12".

When directly comparing the 1976 standard KZ900-A4 to the 1976 LTD KZ900-B1, MaKaw created the LTD by adding various bolt-on bits to chopperize it, including Jardine exhaust (which had less ground clearance), stepped seat, Morris Mags, plus a number of other parts unrelated to the suspension. Frames are the same (except for some tabs, notably the rear m/c tab on LTD), forks are the same, LTD's Boge-Mulholland shock were same unsacked 13" length, etc.

When the measured distance between the rear axle and road surface remains the same, imo any difference in seat height and/or ground clearance is due to something else besides overall outside diameter of rear wheel (such as seat configuration, shock length, exhaust system, and/or lowered front end).

Getting back to the original question in this thread, I would suspect very little if any difference in the rear axle to floor measurement between the oem standard model and the oem LTD model.

Good Luck!

It depends what tire size you have to if any difference in height. 4.00-18 stock size tire is about 6/10" taller than a MT90-16. 110/90-18 is nearly identical to a MT90-16. Like I've said in the past a 110/90 is not very close to a 4.00-18, being 6/10" lower profile actually. So you can really accomplish the same lowerng by just running a 110/90 instead of the correct 4.00, but lowering will be less than 1/3" either way. You can run a 120/80-16 or something in those lines and that will be 3" smaller diameter than the 4.00-18 so lower the bike 1 1/2". I wouldn't recommend it as you've all guessed.

In '76 Kaw asked what mods do most people do to their standard models. The mods were fork extensions, fat rear tires pullback bars and mags. Most were trying to get that chopperesk outlaw look of the day. Thus the custom look and the LTD was born into the 76' KZ900LTD or "the first Jap cruiser with an attitude". They mostly accomplished the semi-chopper stance by reducng the rear tire to a 16, putting buckhorns and a shaved down step seat. They also made a small peanut tank on the 76'900LTD model but re-inflated it for 77-LTD's. I don't believe they were looking for handling enhancements...just aesthetics...which is what 70% of people go for. But they did go to double disks in front and a disk in back so they did enhance something.

What I have gathered from reading the LTD was a USA model only. Is this correct.

If I remember reading right they were USA only(Canada?). They made like 3000 of them and they flew off the floor. I think it was like 1 for each dealer. They made another 2500 and sold them too. So a model was born. I'd heard there were some 77 900's but don't know if any of those were LTD's. There certainly were 77 1000LTD's.