Proud Owner of a KZ750

Hello everyone,

New member of this forum! I bought a couple months ago a 1982 KZ750 LTD. I have been gathering as much info as possible on the web and, particularly, on this forum and thought it was time to join and introduce myself.

I'm in Ontario, Canada and, yes, it's winter and can't ride. This is not my first bike and not my first rebuild. I rebuilt a 1979 CB400T a coupl years ago and turned it into a Cafe with the help of their forum and I know how important the bike community is. I intent to do the same with this bike, Cafe or vintage look, I haven't decided yet!

For the bike: Paid $450 CAN for it and has 17000km, but the speedometer is missing, so not holding my breath on it. But for the general condition of the bike, I don't think it has many km's. Sadly, it was probably sitting in a humid environment for a while. I unseized it easily with oil through the spark plug holes and a ratchet on the crank a few days later. It looks like it has compression, but will do a complete top end rebuild (that will be my first time), honing the cylinders, new gaskets, new rings, lap the valves and new valve seals. The exhaust it garbage (humidity did the job). It has lots of holes everywhere, so I bought a good used condition MAC 4into1 with a Vance and Hines muffler off ebay. I know most of you guys swear by Kerker, sorry! Really excited about that, my first 4 in-line with a 4into1 exhaust! I have gathered as much info about KZ as possible as I know nothing about Kawasaki bikes. I sourced all the parts I will need for the Cafe/vintage rebuild. But sadly, I will only start on it next Fall.

If someone can tell me what is the line on the side of the tank. It has it on both sides at the same place, nothing underneath the tank though, and I can't not see why.

Thank you for your support, expertise and for welcoming me

Hello Polish,
Welcome to KZRider!
I'm thinkin that the reason why your image uploads failed is because you used the back button while composing your post.
Bill

Sorry!

Here are the pictures. I downloaded a PDF manual and can't wait to get my hands on it. I love working on old bikes.

Looks like those "lines" are decals painted over. That would make it a CSR?
Steve

Never thought of that!

I will strip the tank off this summer and see what it is.

Thx

Welcome Polish. You 're in the right place.
Bike looks pretty good actually apart from the obvious seat and tank. Like Steve said the ines are probably from a decal and paint job. However, I think the CSR 750 was twin and LTD is correct.

For $450CAN I'd say you got a great deal. 17,000 Km is nothing . Mine (1980 E1) has almost 90,000 Km on it and I hope to get a few more years out of it.

From the muffler stay, frame grip, side cover & seat, the motorcycle appears to be a 750H Ltd chain drive. As for decals being painted over, the 83 750 Ltd Shaft had tank graphics like that, so maybe somebody swapped fuel tanks. The 750K Twin Ltd-Belt also had graphics like that, but the rear mount is completely different & the Twin didn't have the low fuel switch (your tank has the tell tale pigtail from the switch).

It is definitely a LTD. Tank could have been swapped for sure. I can see it was dropped on the left side from scratches on the side cover and clutch lever. The tank has the low level switch underneath it and has the right bracket to attach it to the frame. If you look closely, you can see the line is along the emblem as well, I don’t think a decal would go there. Will have to strip it and see.

Before stripping the bike down, I wanted to check compression and spark, even run it a little, to see what I had to deal with, but a mechanic friend said not to do it for fear of damaging the cylinder walls from rust deposit as it was seized. Any thoughts on that matter?

Thank you guys

I'd think of the compression/run test as a risk if it was siezed - it could start and run fine, even if the bore gets scratched a bit, but it could also result in more serious damage. If you're planning on getting into the engine regardless of the results, I would do that first to measure the bore & rings. That being said, it's just an engine, and I've revived previously-siezed engines without any problems. I just don't worry as much about a cheap GM engine.

Personally & from much experience, I would not try to run the bike any. The reason was mentioned earlier. It could easily damage the cylinder wall so that a small overbore would not work. I believe (from a poor memory) that Kawasaki only provided enough cylinder wall to overbore (0.030"). If you damage past this amount, you will have to sleeve the block. This is not a big deal, just expensive.
I had a lot of problems finding stock pistons for an overbore on a 82 GPZ 750. I did find some in England. If I had not found these, I would have had to go to a Weisco 810 cc. kit, that requires sleeving.
If I can be of any assistance just message me. I am finishing some powdercoating & starting to re-assemble at this point in my restoration.

I hope I don't have to bore, I already bought standard rings. Maybe I went backwards on that one...

Thx

JL

The KZ750 can be bored to 810cc without sleeving. In terms of regular OS pistons, IMD pistons from England are the only source I've seen.

Since the decision has been made to rering than I wouldn't bother trying to run the engine. Just bust it down and start the rebuild. Be sure to use OEM gaskets, not some crappy aftermarket gasket kit or you very well may get leakage. The 750 heads are prone to leakage/seapage on the ends anyway and that's with the best gaskets so it doesn't pay to take chances.