Another amateur build thread

TexasKZ wrote:

I am in need of a shop that can inspect, true, index and weld the crank. The only place I know of that still does this is Garner. Do any of you have a favorite place in the U.S. for such things?

I also need somebody to fit the new pistons in the cylinders. I suppose having the same place do both would be ideal, providing the quality and price are acceptable. Am I naive in thinking this could really happen?

Sharing what a race engine builder on The GS Resources posted.  This is somewhat old info, so not sure if the phone numbers are still good.

Stan Gardner is in Maine at 207-664-0377. John Pearson is in Ohio & there is also Bob Mosher at Accurate Crankshaft in Florida at 813-933-6374. Bob used to run the shop at Falicon till he got tired of all their CRAP & opened his own shop. He's an honest guy to deal with as are Pearson & Gardner. I wouldn't send my weedeater crank to Falicon, let alone a crank I cared about!!! 

Try Wells Racing in Duncanville. They did my headwork and they might be able to do crank 

I have had 4 cranks done by Gardner over the last few years. They have come back very nice. 
 

I have seen a lot of fancy welds on street cranks on this site that are not really necessary for the HP output.

I had my cylinder boring/head guy get two cranks welded/trued for me (not completely rebuilt) One for $120 and one for $150 (Canadian $$) The welding was done by a local guy, but the trueing was done by the boring guy, so two people involved for that pricing. That boring guy has worked on Z1's for +40 years.

The one for $150 was for my 1327 drag bike in 2019, and the one for $120 was for my 1200 street bike in 2022. The drag crank only has marginally longer welds, both are not welded all the way around the pins. Both cranks were low mileage virgin cranks that had never been abused.

I am just pointing out that you don't have to spend a arm and leg getting a crank welded.

Its probably a different story if your planning a turbo or other power adder to go north of 160HP.
 

 

 

Gardner crank...

I feel i should give some credit here to the guy whose bike initially inspired this mess. His name is Rob Eberle, and here is a bit more info about him and his KZ

robswheels.com/

Also, I have redone the tail light mount and have begun chopping away at the new seat pan. Pics to follow soonly.

Good to see you are back on it

Currently in my crosshairs is the seat. I am pretty sure I have the tailpiece located where I want it, both front to back as well as the angle, so now I can get on with the seat.
A friend of mine lent me a mold he created for cafe-style seats. I could make a fiberglass pan with the mold, HOWEVER, I would need to cut it from side to side so I could lengthen it, then cut it lengthwise so I could make it wide enough for the KZ frame, and then I would have to mutilate the hump at the back to blend with the KZ tailpiece. Ugh.

I decided that I really needed something completely unproven and much more complicated, so I got this.....



It is a sheet of 3mm thick abs. What could go wrong?

I have cut out the front part of the seat pan, following the frame rails. I have also started cutting out some edge pieces to go around the perimeter. I will be using the factory rubber blocks to support the seat. They raise the pan about 3/4 inch above the frame, so my side pieces are about one inch wide. This will hide the blocks and ad rigidity to the pan. I also plan to glue several ribs to the bottom of the pan for further rigidity. 

So, how to keep the seat anchored to the bike? Seems like Kawasaki had a pretty good system, but the hinges stick out past the frame rails, and I do not want to do that. My solution to that is a die grinder with a cutoff wheel. Yup, cut those puppies off, removed as much of the old welds as I could, and applied some primer to discourage rust.

 

So now what? Thanks for asking. I will make some reinforced tabs on what used to be the hinge side of the seat pan that have a semi-circular cutout that matches the frame rail. They should keep the seat from moving to the right or popping up.

Something like this...

Now for the other side. I want to keep the factory seat lock mechanism so nobody can easily borrow my sexy new seat. I could not find the lock from this bike, so I went to my parts bike and snagged that one, assuming that it would fit without difficulty.

 

Do you see the problem?

That's right. The po TORE IT AND ITS MOUNTING BRACKET COMPLETELY OFF!! 

That is why I could not find the lock for this bike.

If you have a gentle, sensitive nature, you may want to skip this post.

Really.






Determined to stick to this plan, I grabbed my die grinder and a new cutoff wheel and walked over to my parts bike.