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My Ex-Bikes - Sold1974 Kawasaki Z1A 900 VIN# Z1-F25731 Purple Mystic
I bought this bike pretty much as is and have been trying to make it dependable and streetable. It wasn’t running well when I bought it, and I have continually fought fuel delivery problems, and still do to this day. Next step is to once again take the carbs off and see what's up. I picked the bike up at my friend Bob Moffett's house in California who had driven a couple of hours each way to get the bike for me. When I arrived to see the bike, Bob showed me where almost all the gas had leaked out of the bike onto his garage floor. This will be a sign of many other things that had to be solved on the bike. The fuel petcock and carburetors were full of old varnished gas and also had no bowl gaskets at all. Once the carbs were cleaned, it did start. I thought that replacing the bowl gaskets would cure the leaks, but I’m still having issues if I don’t turn off the fuel and let the carbs drain out. In case you didn’t know, carb bowl gaskets are about $17 apiece at your local Kawasaki dealer. I spent about 30 minutes and cut my own out of gasket material, but I think they needed to be thicker. After much fiddling with the carbs (removed 5 times) and timing adjustments and new plugs it did run, but it still wouldn’t rev properly, so I did a compression check and found that one of the cylinders was down about 20% below the others. On the advice of Jeff Saunders(Z1enterprises.com), I ran some Yamaha Ring Free through it. I mixed it with the gas in ‘shock’ mode and let it run. After about 15-20 minutes of running it all of a sudden started idling higher and I went over and blipped the throttle. It responded and then took it for a test drive. It performed very well and actually surprised me with the power that it has. I've added a set of NOS Z1 Mirrors and a set of newly restored gauges from Z-Resto. These really jazzed up the front end of the bike. The carbs have now been rebuilt and the fuel petcock replaced and my garage no longer smells like gasoline. I have purchased..................................drum roll please......................a set of the 4 into 4 exhaust pipes from Z1 Enterprises www.z1enterprises.com and hope to install them shortly. While apart, I will remove the rear wheel, shocks etc and detail out the back end of the bike. Update: Exhaust installed and bike detailed! If you take a close look at the paint on this bike, you will se that it is painted with the type paint that changes color in differing lights. This one goes from Purple to Green to Brown and will really get looks as people walk around it. Next on the list for this bike will be to find a set of suitable bodywork and repaint in original Kawasaki style and colors. I like the stuff that's on it now and it sure turns heads, but my originality phase has kicked into high gear.
Click on the image to enlarge picture
Marbles Motors ©2004 |
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