TOPIC:

Early work was by hand. Later work (5,000 & 10,000 grit) was with a small rotary sander. I also used the rotary sander with the polish and buffing pads.

You might check into ordering some MicroMesh. It's a series of sanding material that goes from 1500 to 12000 grit. It was developed to remove scratches from plexiglass. Then use Novus2 polish. I have used this process on turning acrylics on the lathe and you can get a glass like sheen.

Billz, Thank you I'll looking into it...

I also recommend the Novis polish.

www.amazon.com/dp/B002UCYRZU

I used these to polish a used taillight lens with some scratches. It was pretty quick and looked nice.

thank you all for the advice and recommendations. I'm researching all my options... I'll experiment on the junk one I have.

As I recall Mikaw Novus makes several items for cleaning and polishing plastics of almost any sort. I used their products back in the day on my emergency light lenses and it worked very well for that. They used to make a nice buffing compound besides the cleaners and polishes. I would be leery about clear coating those pieces due to the flexible nature of the liner. You might get it right to where you like it and then clear coat it only to have the clear coat etch or crack.
Rick H.

I need to reach out the experts again... I recently found out the early Kz900 engine cases didnt have the oil volume casting mark near the fill cap on them. My bike was built in November of '75 and serial number placing it within the first 2,700 US built units... The engine I have that was in the bike has the oil volume casting... It is serial number 94124... I'm willing to search for an earlier set of cases to build an engine with.

Now the question, can anyone tell me what date or serial number the oil volume casting was added to the case.

Am I over thinking this and digging to deep into the project... I do want it as correct as possible.

EDIT;
We discussed this before and I don't think it was resolved. Its pretty easy to know a matching numbers bike when it was built in Japan. But when it comes to US built bikes the frame serial numbers are in a different range than the engines. For example a US built Kz900 frame number starts at 500001 and the engine numbers start at 086001. The logic would be if my frame serial number is in the first 2700 units. Then would the engine number needs to be 086001 +2700= an engine number in the 088700 range then add the standard "within 200" units established to confirm its a matching numbers bike.

Do we know that the US made "5" bikes follow the 200 rule? Since all of the engines, for both the 900 and kz1000, use a single continuous series of serial numbers for both US and JP made bikes, I had always assumed that the engines were all made on the same line in Japan, and shipped to the US for final assembly. That may be totally wrong, it's just a guess.

But if that were the case, it could be that the serial numbers got mixed up a bit more in their travels.

Anyone have any details about how the early US Kawasaki assembly worked? How much was actually made in US?

DOHC wrote: I had always assumed that the engines were all made on the same line in Japan, and shipped to the US for final assembly. That may be totally wrong, it's just a guess.DOHC i was under the same thought. So I dont know if the engines were kept in any order to be installed

But if that were the case, it could be that the serial numbers got mixed up a bit more in their travels.I agree

Anyone have any details about how the early US Kawasaki assembly worked? How much was actually made in US?

Maybe Krazee1 can tell us...

Another thing I was going to say is it looks like, for the kz1000, the standard "A", the LTD "B", and the police "C" all seem to draw from the same engine serial number series. If that's true, I don't see how they could ever align three (or more for the JP and US series) different frame serial number series with a single engine number series.

But I suppose when the 76 900 production started, the "A" was the only model being produced.

I have always been told that '76 cases had the oil volume casting. Also, that Kawasaki abandoned all attempts to match engine and frame numbers.

I went looking to see if I could find anything in the service bulletins to figure out when a possible change was made. There was a bulletin in early '76 describing an upper case mod to make it easier to pry the cylinders off the case. This mod likely resulted in new castings, and may have been when they also added the oil volume casting. It would be logical to make the change at the same time. Just a guess on my part though.

Kawasaki did not trust round eyes building motors when the Lincoln plant first opened. The Kz900 motors were assembled in Japan and shipped here.

Don't remember when Kawasaki started building complete motors in Lincoln.

When Kawasaki added those fancy pry points to the Kz900 cases, they increased the sales of flat blade screwdrivers by 50% in Kawasaki dealerships!!!!