Mike, It isn't a big deal. You remove carbs and pipes and tach cable. Take off valve cover and remove cams. Also, set the #4 piston to TDC before removing cams for ease of reference when reinstalling cams. Make sure you use a piece of wire to hang your cam chain and DO NOT drop cam chain into engine well as it can sometimes be a chore to fish out.
OK, remove the 12 nuts and two small bolts at the ends. (I am more familiar with older 900/1000 so if there are no 6mm bolts on the ends on the J motor, don't remove them hehe). Once they are removed, collect all the washers. The ones on the four end studs need to be annealed; that is, heated REAL HOT and dropped into water. This restores their crush-ability. OK, the nuts and bolts are off... now tap the head with a rubber mallet. Don't use a hammer as you can see the result as many heads are chipped. The head has a couple good pry points near the front and back where the meat is thicker. Use a broken off butter knife initially to pry as a screwdriver tends to dig into the alumimum. Once the head starts to pull from the block, you will be able to gently pry it off without scaring the gasket surface or breaking anything.
Once the head is off, you need to clean the gasket mating surfaces as the head gasket will stick to both sometimes. Sometimes, it will come off cleanly. Contact z1enterprises.com right now for a head gasket set and you might want to buy new valve stem oil seals. If you come out with the set of extra carbs you have and the brake pump, I will let you borrow a valve spring compressor and show you what needs done. Would be an excellent time to lap the valves and do a bit of clean up before putting the head back on. The valves come off using a special adapter that fits on the retainer in place of the normal bucket.
If you disassemble, make sure you use an egg crate to put the valve pieces in so when you reassemble, you won't have to check clearances (get shims back where they belong).
To reassemble, after clean up, you just put the new head gasket in place, put the head on while holding onto that cam chain and then put the bolts/nuts back on. These must be torqued TWICE in a very specific pattern so the gasket will seal. Some folks torque then warm the engine and then do the retorque. On a 900/1000 the two torque values are 18/25 lbs but they are a bit more for your engine I think. I have a torque wrench if you need to borrow one.
I will put some liquid gasket under the four outer crush washers to prevent leaks as this is where the oil for the cams will come up through. Put your pipes on with new gaskets (get them from z1enterprises.com as well) and the carbs. The price of gaskets from z1E is about 1/3 what you will pay for over at the Kaw dealer in Universal City!
Last, before ASSUMING you have a head gasket leak, the tach drive will often leak. The tach drive press fits into the head and is held on with a little tab and bolt. Under the drive is a 10mm oring (memory?). There is also an oil seal inside the drive where it mates with the cable. This is the usual culprit. The oil seal looks like a valve stem oil seal and when it leaks, oil will wash the front of your cylinder head. If you have a leak in front, wash it with carb cleaner and spray the area with some powder deodorant. Start the bike and when you see wet on the powder, shut it off and see where the leak is. Would be a shame to go to all the work of pulling the head to find it is just that little oil seal.
