I saw a brand new GPz 550 D1 on 18 December 1981, at the dealership, on the day I collected my brand new Kawasaki AR 50 A1 ...
That picture stuck in my mind for 40 years...so I wanted to return everything to stock, as far as possible, to re-live that memory
She looked pretty sad when I got her...
Covered in crud, showing the years neglect... but thank-fully not much corrosion.
The seat-cover was sun-beaten and ripped, no airbox (cheapo pod filters), road-rashed bikini fairing...
I was very fortunate to find an "ok looking" airbox at my local bike breakers yard.
Ebay for replica seat cover, carb boots, air-box boots, clutch plates, clutch cable, speedo cable, brake pads, fork seals
and tapered steering-head bearings.
New o-ring chain and sprockets.
Zinc plated most of the nuts and bolts.
New battery, LED turn signal bulbs with an LED flasher unit.
I repaired and painted the bikini fairing. (Volkswagen colour "Monza Red" is a very good match to the 40 year old Firecracker Red
)
Some missing items like the tool tray and document box under the tail-piece are no longer available, so I designed replica's
and 3D printed them.
I've done a cylinder-head re-fresh: lapped the vales and installed new stem-seals.
I live up at 5500ft, so I had to spend some time re-jetting for the 4 into 1 Kerker.
Settled on 104 main jets, stock pilots.
She purrs like a pussycat!
Recently, I found a set of Ohlins rear shocks that I had professionally re-built.
These made a huge a difference to the handling, compared to the 40 yer-old original units!
H.