Topic: Terry's Kawasaki Z1000 Mad Max Bike, my er, 2020 summer project.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Per, yeah I'm really enjoying this build! At this stage I'll only paint the tank, gloss black, but eventually I want to paint it all in the early Z1 pattern, but black and yellow, rather than brown/orange.

[PeWe]

All Z1 900 color schemes look good since the tank- sidecovers- rear with lamp has such fantastic design.
Green not bad eirher.
Thanks to Internet easy to find photos or a completely new set, painted and all to Z1000 or 900

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Per, yeah the Z1 in particular was arguably the best looking 1970's bike to roll off the production line. I'm using Z1 replica bodywork on this bike, just because it looks so good.

I saw a poor Z1 that some kid in the US had inherited from his dead uncle and turned into a cafe racer, including removing all the bodywork, and installing one of those ironing board seats, and a tank off something else, and it looked like a piece of sh1t. I reckon his uncle would be turning in his grave.......

[PeWe]

Horrible, like rebuild a good looking Ferrari to a Trabant from former DDR

[dragracer]

Your bike has really come along well. Here's my KZ1000.

[Terry in Australia]

Your bike has really come along well. Here's my KZ1000.

Wow, that looks magnificent mate, I'm always impressed with the detail you guys put into your race bikes, mine was always "function over form", with some very "agricultural" (redneck) engineering. I'm still too scared to remove the alternator cover, I know that the alternator assembly, starter clutch, idler gear, starter motor etc have been removed, I'm just hoping the PO didn't chop the end of the crank off, or I might have to install one of my old ARD magneto's just so I have enough juice for the ignition!

I've gotta love this forum, Ted (Ricky Racer) advertised a turbo kit for a BMW K100 (flying brick) this morning and as I also own a Bavarian Murder Weapon I jumped on it, so sometime down the track I'll do a "Turbo Build" thread, I'm hoping it's a very rare "Luftmeister" kit, they only made 200 and most were sold in the US, so I'll be the only kid on the block with a blown brick. Should be fun!

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,180773.msg2095096.html#msg2095096

[754]

 A turbo brick.. a blown one would be even cooler..

[Terry in Australia]

There was a supercharger kit available back then too Frank, but I'd prefer a turbo, no parasitic power loss to worry about.

[web]

I was once a member of the turbobricks forum, but that was about Volvos...

[Terry in Australia]

Yeah, according to the interwebs there were only 200 kits made for Luftmeister, and the kit I bought is apparently from the first batch of 20 made as they stopped producing the air filter cover after the first 20 were made. Its a fairly small club with virtually no spare parts available, so I hope most of the kit is intact, or I might need to do some "agricultural engineering".........    

[754]

When I had my R100 RT I stopped in at Luftmeister, 87 I think ....at that time they were setting record speeds with turbo bricks. .

[Terry in Australia]

Check this out Frank, RB Racing designed, built and supplied the turbo kits to Luftmeister, including the 200 MPH brick record. They don't have anything nice to say about Matt Capri, the owner of Luftmeister, apparently he was a crook. I still like my Luftmeister pipe that I scored for my brick when I bought it, even though Matt's claims may have been a little exaggerated........

https://rbracing-rsr.com/bmwturbos.htm

 

[Terry in Australia]

I should be riding my bike down to Phillip Island as I type this, but my back is really bad and has been for a few weeks, so I've had to give the 2020 classic, a miss. Not happy, but it is what it is.

Anyhoo, back to the big Zed. Yesterday I had the parts I needed to get the rear brake working. The rear MC that I bought from a FB seller in the US was rusted/corroded shut, so I'd bought a cheapo Chinese "Universal" MC and a hose from Ebay, and they'd both arrived by Friday.

Of course, nothing "Universal" is a direct fit, so I had to make some parts to get it all to work, but that was fine, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Saturday Zed dreaming 25 Jan 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I was happy that the brake caliper bled easily and I even rolled it back and forth, and the brake works, so I can move onto the next job.

Saturday Zed dreaming 25 Jan 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The gas tank needed some love. It was an unknown Z1 tank I bought on Ebay, with a crappy matt black paint job, so I decided to strip it right back to bare metal to see what horrors lied beneath, and i was both surprised and slightly pissed off that the only dents were the ones I put in it when I leaned the bike against the bench, so I'll have to see what I can do to fix that today. I've had varying levels of success with stripping paint  in the past, but I was pretty happy with the stuff I bought at "Supercheap", a couple of applications took the bulk of the old paint off, and my wire brush drill attachment took care of the rest.

Saturday Zed dreaming 25 Jan 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Saturday Zed dreaming 25 Jan 2020 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I washed it down with acetone, wiped it dry and hit it with some etch primer, high fill primer, and a dusting of black laquer, and today I'll color sand it back to reveal any other dents that I'm not aware of. That's if I can get out of my chair........    

[jgger]

Check this out Frank, RB Racing designed, built and supplied the turbo kits to Luftmeister, including the 200 MPH brick record. They don't have anything nice to say about Matt Capri, the owner of Luftmeister, apparently he was a crook. I still like my Luftmeister pipe that I scored for my brick when I bought it, even though Matt's claims may have been a little exaggerated........

https://rbracing-rsr.com/bmwturbos.htm

Quite the read!

[PeWe]

Lets hope you can fix the dent that can be a soft dent without sharp corners?

Youtube has videos about fixing dents, bending, massaging from inside.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks men, well I'm still on the sick list as my back is really annoying the crap out of me, so no bike stuff today. Tomorrow I'm off to see the orthopaedic surgeon to see if I need more surgery, something I was hoping to avoid this year. Such is life.

Anyway, I hobbled around yesterday and did a little bit. First up was rubbing back the "guide coat" on the tank, to see how much "mud" was required. Luckily enough it didn't need much.

Sunday Australia Day 26 Jan 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I thought about trying to lever the dent out, but it wasn't deep and I didn't have a PDR kit handy, so I just slapped some filler in. One day I'll probably dig it out and fix it properly, but for the time being, it's fine. I sanded back the filler, primed it again, and applied a little spot filler to fill some little imperfections. When I can walk again, I'll wet sand it again, and call it good.

Monday Zed Zen 27 Jan 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I was all excited and thought I'd clean the carbs, and install them, and the new exhaust. As it turned out, I only got the carbs cleaned before the back pain was really giving me the message, so I packed up and came inside. Surprisingly they were pretty clean inside, none of the jets were blocked, and apart from the smelly old Avgas, they were good. I stripped out all the jets, sprayed lots of carb cleaner everywhere, blew all the circuits out with compressed air, and put them back together. Hopefully I'll get back to it soon.

Sunday Australia Day 26 Jan 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr   

[spotty]

Maybe avgas doesn't evaporate and leave nasty deposits behind, the he fact that it was still in there might support this theory ?
And maybe it's higher octane ( thinness ? ) provides some cleansing properties during use ?

Another thought ..... Does not avgas lead to the use of stoopid big jets which may not be compatible with normal ulp and street use ?
Did you check the sizes while they were out ?

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Spotty, no, methanol is what you're thinking about, much larger jets required, and if you leave it in a carb for more than a few days, it'll eat them from within. Avgas is just high octane petrol, the stuff I used to sell at the servo in West Heidelberg was 115 RON.

That reminded me of a story. A bloke came to the servo one Saturday morning and bought 100 litres of Avgas for his drag boat. I dutifully pumped it out of a 200 litre drum into his fuel cans. My boss rang me on Monday and asked me where I got the avgas from, because the bloke's boat blew up, and we didn't have any avgas? I said "Out of the drum marked "Avgas"?

It turned out the boss was stealing fuel for his car from one of the pumps and was storing it in empty avgas drums. Anyway, the drag racer wasn't accusing us of selling him bad fuel, (he should have....) he was just trying to work out why his supercharged Keith Black engine was now a paperweight. Ooops.......

[spotty]

I see, should be ok if you use top grade ulp then

Though some United servos sell " V8 supercar " grade fuel which they claim is around 108-110
I used it in the vmax and as it's not jetted appropriately it was not a happy experience, made great weedkiller though

I know the United in Kinglake has it, went to the pub there for lunch today with Mrs spotty, I chose the bangers and mash from the Terry ( or pensioners ) menu expecting a reduced size meal and was greatly disappointed to receive an enormous serve of really good food

[Terry in Australia]

Nice, I haven't had a meal there in a couple of years, I get my seniors card in March, I'll have to go for a ride up there soon, the food was always very good there.

[spotty]

They didn't even ask for a grandpa card, must have been the bald head and grey beard that fooled them
Been to a few places lately that just offer the wrinkly menu as a medium meal option without getting all nazi on the eligibility
Excellent sausages though with mash, gravy, peas, onion and sh1tloads of bacon and furphy $9 a pint

[PeWe]

Drive chain cleaner on rattle can a really good carb and general cleaner. It cleaned better than my CRC carb clraner.

[Terry in Australia]

They didn't even ask for a grandpa card, must have been the bald head and grey beard that fooled them
Been to a few places lately that just offer the wrinkly menu as a medium meal option without getting all nazi on the eligibility
Excellent sausages though with mash, gravy, peas, onion and sh1tloads of bacon and furphy $9 a pint

Ha ha, well I'm buoyed by that Spotty, I can't remember ever being offered the seniors menu at a pub or restaurant, and I eat out 5 days a week, so I musn't look my age!

My mate Pete has been retired since late 2017 and uses his seniors card to get into the Phillip Island Classic ($38 for seniors this year, for Sunday entry) Superbikes, Moto GP, etc.

If my back gets any worse, I might be retiring before I even qualify for a seniors card. I dragged myself to work this morning and staggered from the car park to the office, but I'm gonna see my GP and get an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, and if it gets any worse, I'm going home.

I haven't seen any drive chain cleaner Per, I used to dump my chain into a tub of kerosene, and using a brush clean all the crap off it, then put it in a can of Duckhams chain grease, heat it on the stove, then carefully take the whole lot outside, hang the chain on the clothesline to drain the excess back into the can. It worked really well, except for that time I spilt it all over the kitchen floor........

[PeWe]

I ordered chain cleaner spray by mistake instead of lube. Found it was good for cleaning carbs.
It is made for o-ring chains so it must be ok for rubber.

Chain cleaned on bike with naphta sprayed on it, next a round with pressure washer using warm water. Then lubed it when dried.

[Terry in Australia]

Sounds good Per, I'll look for a can. OK, feeling slightly better today, so pissed off that I had to go to work, instead of playing with my big zed. ("Kay Zee" for my American cousins, and not sure what my Euro mates call them?) I did have an appointment with my GP, which resulted in me now possessing some sweet, sweet drugs (Endone and Diazepam) so I can get back to my part time pole dancing gig, and if I have time, bike stuff too. I also have an MRI and an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon, so that'll piss me off, but the last thing the doctor said to me was "come back if you need more drugs" or words to that effect, so right now, life is good. 

I arrived home from work today, and waiting for me was a small pile of parcels, including the Yamaha FJR1300 front master cylinder. I needed a double banjo bolt so went to my stash, but was pissed off that the only one I had wasn't long enough? It was a "Goodridge" brand item, and from memory the banjo's on the goodridge lines are narrower. Anyhoo, nothing an old redneck can't bodge from an old bolt, and I was happy that it actually looks like it'll work.

Tuesday Zed problem solving 28 Jan 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I hooked it all up, then unbolted it and fed the lines thu this convenient hole in the lower triple, which will save me a zip tie, and look neat, all at the same time.

Tuesday Zed problem solving 28 Jan 2020 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Tuesday Zed problem solving 28 Jan 2020 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So I haven't filled the MC or bled anything yet, I wanted to, but my desire to drink alcohol took priority, so I'll do that tomorrow. I mentioned previously that I'd bought a used KZ1000 side stand on Ebay (USA) then discovered the next day that I had a brand new Z1 side stand in a box. Well the KZ1000 side stand arrived today as well.

Tuesday Zed problem solving 28 Jan 2020 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr


I did a quick comparison to the Z1 stand, and discovered that the KZ1000 item is a good 40 mm shorter. That is actually a great thing, because now I don't have to find some longer rear shocks to jack the bike up. The problem is that the longer Z1 side stand tends to stand the bike too "upright", so if I swap the stands out, I shouldn't need to install longer rear shocks.

Tuesday Zed problem solving 28 Jan 2020 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I did think about swapping in the Ikons from my Harley or the Koni's from the Yamaha 650, but I like the YSS shocks I installed on the big Zed, so as long as they work good, as Sean says, they'll look good too. Anyway, that's all I got done, tomorrow I'll rub the tank back as well as bleed the front brakes, in prep for some paint, that is on it's way down from Sydney. I won another auction for a set of Brembo twin spot calipers off a BMW K100 for cheap, which I will probably throw in a box of other Brembo calipers I bought many moons ago, for future projects. (maybe my K2, we'll see) OK, more tomorrow! (unless my back takes a dump..... again)