Thanks guys, to get a "Roadworthy certificate" it will need to be as close to original as possible, as the laws here have tightened right up, due to the "Cafe/brat/bobber" d1ckheads coming to grief on poorly engineered pieces of sh1t and spoiling it for everyone else. The PO, in an effort to save weight, cut the fender mounts off the forks, and I think this model didn't come with dual front discs as there are no brackets for them on the other fork leg? I think the 1977 models came with both single and dual discs, so I'm guessing this one came without, or the PO did an unusually good job of removing it?
No biggie, I got onto a couple of guys in the US via FB, one a great guy, the other, not so much. The great guy had an untitled 1977 frame that he happily chopped off some frame sections, a good swingarm and a 160 MPH speedo from a Z1 and sent them to me for a fair price, the other guy sold me some good fork lowers, another brake caliper, a rear disc and caliper for the 18 inch mag wheel I have ready to go on, and some other stuff I've probably forgotten. Bottom line is I have all the frame sections, front and rear ends etc to make it original(ish)
A few thousand dollars spent at Wemoto got me a couple of boxes full of great stuff like a new seat (they sent me the wrong one, but it's growing on me) new OEM style front fender, switch blocks, wiring harness, lights, blinkers, new ducktail and sidecovers, electrical gubbins, etc. Apart from new Stinko tyres and maybe some caliper rebuild kits, I pretty much have everything I need to do the build. I think the Swamp Rat will be pretty much done in the next few weeks (I'm gonna be away interstate most of July) so it's gonna be great to strip down the old Drag Hag and cut and shut the frame, paint it, and start bolting on all the bling.
That will be phase 1. Phase 2, sometime down the track, possibly a retirement project, will involve building the 1428cc engine that I have about half of presently, and with maybe 180(+) BHP on tap, I think some modern forks, wheels and brakes will be in order. I already have the wheels and discs, I just need some good 41mm forks and an XJR1300 swingarm, and some nice calipers. Anyway, that's a long ways down the track, I'm hoping it'll be a rideable bike by Christmas, and then it'll be further enhanced as time goes by. I must give it a kick in the guts and see if that old Avgas is still any good. The back tyre has a slow leak, I replaced the valve yesterday but it's flat again today, so I might go buy some tyre seal stuff and tip it in so I don't need to keep pumping the tyre up whenever I need to move it away from my "work bench".
Anyway, I better get the Swamp Rat done first. Nothing much will get done todaay as I'm taking the wife and mother in law out for lunch at our favourite "all you can eat" (not much nowadays, but I like the variety) restaurant and poker machine palace, my wife doesn't like poker machines, but I like to occasionally exercise my index finger, and so does her mum, so we go gambling while the wife goes shopping for a few hours. Hopefully more on the bike tomorrow after work.
Vetter Kawasaki Z1000 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
