Stearing stem rake on zx front end conversion???

ramtough_63 wrote: wow thats a clean build beautiful!

My plan is to get the mono shock done the frame painted and engine freshened up before
may. As long as work holds out I can collect the front end parts as I go.

In theory I will collect all the parts needed for the swap and have it all togesther so I can take a weekend to knock out the fork changeover. If the money holds out lol

I promised my gorl we would ride the KZ to the Blessing this year instead of the Goldwing

Take your time and you'll be fine. Do as you see fit but I took the forks completely apart, inspected them and replaced worn bushings, seals & oil. I also read up on them so I fully understood what adjusters I had to work with.

KzJim wrote: Be careful just cranking the pre-load adjusters all the way down to try and get some extra height out of the front. Doing that can make for a stiff ride and limit the spring compression, the spring rate doesn't change, just the amount it can compress does. Too stiff (too little spring compression) and when you hit a bump it will be too stiff and/or bottom out and the tire can break contact with the road, now imagine that happening mid-corner leaned over. ZX forks typically have stiff compression and slow rebound, so the front end will get bounced up and wont rebound quick enough to keep traction.. that's the pogo effect you get on freeways..

Jim,

You're jumping to incorrect conclusions and not at all understanding how the forks with "Ride Height Adjusters" work. Pre-Load & Ride Height

I NEVER told the guy to crank down the Pre-load.....
I told him "if" he has ride height adjusters, he could use them to gain ground clearance

There's a difference between Pre-load adjusters and Ride Height Adjusters. There's a significant difference between the two. Read the info in the link in my post. THEN reread my post and you'll understand how I was able to overcome the shorter length by taking advantage of the adjustment "THOSE PARTICULAR FORKS" provide

When grafting suspension from one motorcycle to another, it's the builder's obligation to fully understand what he's got to work with. All forks are not created equal.

I fully agree that cranking more pre-load into the picture can upset the function of the fork...but again...it's not pre-load that gets the ground clearance problem cured... it's ride height adjustments and ONLY if the forks have them...

Dam that'a a lot of typing I had to go through because you misread a post :woohoo: Happy Holidays JIM

Where might these adjusters be?.. since the zx units have pre-load and rebound in the caps, I looked at my set of '97 and '00 zx7 forks and don't find any ride height adjusters.

is this what your referring

Ride Height: Determines steering speed and weight distribution. This is normally the place where to start setting up a bike

Preload: This is the amount by which the spring is pre-compressed (by adjusters) to get it to work in its optimum range. You can vary this to get the suspension to work optimally for your weight. You should make sure the preload is right for your weight before you start making damping adjustments to in the link?

They're on top of the forks and look like pre-load adjusters Jim.

You mean these Larry...




Edit--- forgot to add that to make the fork 'longer' you'd have to make the dampening rod longer.

Jim,


This page Link

Click on Suspension button in the left frame menu.

Then in the right frame where the data shows up, scroll down a bit to where you see "important points". It's about half way down the page. Read that section and click on the link to "test".

IF you look at the fork schematics between the N and P, you'll see they're different internally.

I can't tell you if your forks have the ride height adjusters. They look the same externally.

I can tell you this. If you put them on a KZ with the adjuster backed all the way off like that...you'd hammer your pipe into the turf on the first little bump and it would handle very poorly.

Same for the rear shock.

In any case, I'm done with the debate. I rode that bike over 5000 miles and built it from the ground up.... It f'n works great and never ever exhibited any of the characteristics you described...EVER.

No.. those forks dont even have any seals in them.. not even close to even thinking about rebuilding them...

RB racing has a good article on front end geometry

Jim, give it a little thought and you'll see that the adjustments you have marked as Preload can not in any conceivable way actually preload the spring. Unless you ride around with the forks topped out all the time anyway

i read and reread these post and i see nothing about the bearings on a swap help me out u guys im putting 85-6-7 frontend on my 81 kz and i would like some help on the bearing swap or advice or even some of you out there that may have done i plan on swapping front and rear from same donor to same KZ HELP!! thanks in advance

I swapped the stems and used tapered roller for KZ. Some guys have custom stems made.

Do what you like but here's how I approached my build. The first thing I did was get some height measurements off an identical model with the engine in the frame and had a Kerker Pipe. I measured the following points.

Ground to bottom of the frame rails under the engine.

Ground to the center of the top rear shock mount stud.

Ground to the top edge of the top tripple clamp, center where the tube slide through.

Values like that give you a known, workable target height to avoid clearance problems.

Main thing is to look over what you have very carefully and be looking a couple of steps ahead as you go so you don't get snagged


A couple things I ran into were:

Making KZ stem fit ZX7 lower clamp. Bushing made from the 7 stem fixed that.

Making stem fit to ZX7 clamp - hole was smaller than stem.

Shaved 5mm off bottom of top clamp stem boss to get some ride height back. Allowed clamp to move down further...that allowed forks to drop same distance.... 5mm is 5mm I saw it...it took it.

Here is how PMC doing it with ex-center sleeves on top and bottom stem.