KZ200 Brake upgrade, KZ750 Caliper

Hi all,

new here, just picked up my first KZ and am going through the controls before I get it on the road. The mechanical caliper on my bike was a mess so I thought i'd roll the dice on mounting a hydraulic caliper assembly from a KZ750. I saw a brief post where someone else did it successfully but wanted to give a little more detail in case anyone out there wanted to give it a shot. No machining is needed for this mod, just some typical garage grinder fabrication and a bit of welding.

When I received my caliper, which I believe is off of of a 78 Kz750, I noticed right away that it didn't fit up the way I had seen in another post, where the lower bolt could fastened with the pad 100% over the rotor. I pulled the caliper apart, flipped the caliper holder and the brake pad, and reassembled. The caliper then mounted up as shown in the first picture. Through trial and error I roughed out the approximate shape for the new top bolt mount from a scrap of 5/16" hot roll, you could go a little thicker but thats what I had. I held it in place and marked the center hole, then drilled and tapped with a 10 x 1.25 to accept the stock mounting bolt. I could now bolt the new mount in place and tweak the fit. Once satisfied I cleaned up both sides and put a small bevel on the newly fabricated mount to improve weld penetration. I tacked the pieces together on the bike, then unmounted the caliper, disassembled and removed the holder so I could clamp it flat and weld it up. After a little cleanup I reassembled the caliper and installed. Everything fit well and I the braking will improve significantly over stock.

I'm gonna take a leap of faith and say that most people on here will know whether or not its a good idea for them to be welding the brake mounts on their bike. I tig welded it for strength and to prevent distortion. You could maybe mig it, but I dont think I would.

Anyways maybe this will help someone. It's a pretty cheap way to work around the lousy brake on these bikes