Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Awesome mate...can't wait to see yet another great build from the 4th. Nice work boot by the way!! They look just like the ones I work in the shed with! Yours are maybe a little cleaner though...

cheers Marty - some surprises in store with this build too.............

Here are the Henry Abe mags, after a few hours work last night - they are masked up and ready for some 2-pak gloss black !! PC picked them up tonight, hopefully will be able to lay a few coats on tomorrow and then give them a week or 2 to harden up before we fit some tyres.

Masking these babies took about an hour per side.....probably take 3 times that to get the polishing done on all the highlited bits !

Thats it, I'm going the the shed to clean all my wheels - may not be to "Harvey Spec" but they'll be shiny......for thos of you that are unaware of what "Harvey Spec" is - think of a mirror

I asked Harv about his wheels last weekend while they glistening (blinding us) in the morning sun... They look incredible but I dont have that much time in my life to complete the same process and achieve the same results on my own wheels.

Harvey-spec wheels are my goal !!


















not. But I will make those highlited bits as shiny as I can get them.....

Started work on the forks tonight - they are the OEM forks from 1977 and have a bit of surface corrosion up high - not unusual on these bikes, the moisture used to get retained inside the headlight brackets.....its not bad by any means, and I will just be giving these forks a good tidy-up, some new fork seals and Progressive springs - and thats about it. Nothing special, just clean & tidy. Better fork springs make a huge difference on old zeds......maybe throw a fork-brace on as well....

i can vouch for the tarossi fork braces have used these on a few bikes now and they do tighten the front up nicely

OK update time

With the frame clean and bare, it is time to sort out some bracing. Basically there are certain spots on a Z frame which can be braced - the end result is a bike that tracks well at speed no matter what the road surface is like. The basic recipe for frame-bracing is captured best in this picture...




You can see the spots where extra tubes and/or gussets need to be added.

For the Z1000 frame, I have used a piece of 34mm tube for the main front brace between the 2 downtubes, and smaller 26mm tube for all the other braces - the only place that flat-steel gussets will be used is up directly behind the steering head - these should be completed tomorrow.

The method of 'fishmouthing' tube steel is not something to get into detail here - you need practice to get it right, especially when the 2 sections of frame to be joined are in different planes

Here is a shot of the 34mm main brace ready to be welded in






For the rest of the bracing pieces - start with a nice length of 26mm tube...





then cut into smaller bits of the right length and fishmouth them...........sounds easy eh ?








Once you have all the bits sorted out - time to start tacking them into place on the frame. I didn't bother with any shots of the bits tacked into place - here are some shots of the pieces fully welded into place. You have to do this slowly - small sections at a time and let the frame cool down between welds. This lot took all day today to shape & weld into place. A few of the welds still need cleaning up, but I am pretty happy with the results....have a couple more smaller pieces to weld into place tomorrow, then file-finish as required....

















This has been done with just your basic stick-welder. No TIG's in the 4th unfortunately.....

PC should have the wheels completed by the end of the weekend - the frame will be off to the powdercoaters next week for blasting and coating. I will also get the swingarm done at the same time.

Looking forward to the end result..

Very cool mate. What method are you using to notch the tube? Is it old school with a 4 inch grinder?

Good stuff Gos .
The Ol ROC grinder looks like its getting the job done !

Sooooooooo........... Would this sort of bracing be beneficial to smaller bikes, like gpz 550's for example. Or were they not as prone to flexing?

Nelso wrote:....Very cool mate. What method are you using to notch the tube? Is it old school with a 4 inch grinder?.....

absolutely mate - easy and works well if you know how to get the angle of the dangle right.....

the kid wrote:.....The Ol ROC grinder looks like its getting the job done !......

its a ripper mate - as a gimme with that 9" ROC grinder, its worth every cent I paid for it

dutchy wrote:....Sooooooooo........... Would this sort of bracing be beneficial to smaller bikes, like gpz 550's for example. Or were they not as prone to flexing?.....

Not really needed on the 550 mate - the motor doesn't have enough power to tie the frame into knots like on the old 900's. It was also the actual design of the backbone under the tank - there were some long unsupported sections that were prone to twisting.....I am sure you could probably do some minor bracing to the 550 - just about every OEM jap frame from back in those days was built to a price.


Finished all the tube and gusset additions today - 2 solid days on this its a fair amount of work really. Here are a couple of photos of the finished frame......you can easily see the additional tubing & gussets in the camera flash .......








I am farken glad that this lot is over - best news of the day though is *NO WELDING FLASH* amazing but true . Some of the welds were pretty much perfect straight off the stick, some needed a bit of tidying-up with the dremel. Should look nice once the frame gets powder-coated.....all up, there are 10 additional tubes & gussets on the frame now. This bike already had a braced swingarm when I bought it, so it should handle pretty well once it all goes back together......

Gosling1 wrote:
Not really needed on the 550 mate - the motor doesn't have enough power to tie the frame into knots like on the old 900's. It was also the actual design of the backbone under the tank - there were some long unsupported sections that were prone to twisting.....I am sure you could probably do some minor bracing to the 550 - just about every OEM jap frame from back in those days was built to a price.

You calling my bike weak as piss!!

Thought it was the case. To be honest, I wouldn't ride it hard enough to do any damage anyway:lol:

Sorry for the temporary hijack. You can bring the thread back to awesomeness now.

Nice work Gos, looking REALLY good