Just picked up a 76 KZ900

650ed wrote: When rebuilding my forks and doing some other work on the bike over a winter I had drained the carbs, removed the tank, and taken my bike in the house for several months. The carbs and "T" fitting were then dry. In early spring I took the bike outside, refitted the tank, and turned on the fuel. The "T" leaked badly! I shut off the fuel and searched online for a new "T" fitting. Before I could find and order a new one I tried the bike again and to my joy the leak had completely stopped. That was 9 years ago and the "T" has not leaked a single drop since then. Ed

That is crazy

I can only assume that contact with the fuel made the o-ring portions of the fitting swell up a little which then sealed them from leaking. Ed

GregZ wrote: Yes, nice survivor! But is it me? Or are those tank decals placed a little off? Looks like a re-paint job

+1

Maybe its because the bike is leaning on the sidestand??? bit of a shame the tank didn't get the original stripes (still looks good though)

650ed wrote: I can only assume that contact with the fuel made the o-ring portions of the fitting swell up a little which then sealed them from leaking. Ed

It seemed to stop. I checked tonight and it's not leaking. I'll keep an eye on it

awesome score !
welcome

leon

A couple of notes:

If the bike was sitting for any period of time, you should go through all the electrical connectors, clean and protect (apply some sort of compound). There aren't that many connectors and once the tank/side covers are removed it should only take like 4 beers. Also, if it hasn't been addressed, the grommet where the wires go through the generator housing will (at some point) leak. It's very common. It can leak around the grommet or wick the oil through the cloth wire insulation. There are threads here on sealing it up and you 'can' buy a replacement grommet , but you need to cut the wires to replace it. Personally, I just cleaned the snot out of the wires/grommet, blew dry and applied gasket compound to the cloth and let it soak in. Then applied silly-cone to the rubber grommet surfaces and the cavity where the wires come out to the frame. That was like 5 years ago, still dry.

Point is, with an original bike like that, any problem that may/will arise has already been covered 100's of times and is usually easy to fix. Once you start with major custom work it all changes.

....just remembered, another common leak is the tach drive in front of the engine. You might want to just bang that out now, the seal kit is cheap enough and you won't have to clean the fins out.

This stuff works great for cleaning electrical connectors. You can find it online, or at Radio Shack or other similar shops. Ed