Kawasaki Twin 750 Custom update

by rider75
(Peace Country, Alberta, Canada)

This is an update to Kawasaki Twin 750 Post:

13 months worth. Mid project peek!

I started out in September, 2007 with a pair of sorry a** looking mid seventies Kawasaki's. The only thing I knew for sure was that it would be a real low buck backyard build. I thought about a resto-mod for about one second. Then I thought chopper or bobber while I was sorting stuff out. A really nice rigid frame can be had from Cycle One in Regina for just over a grand but low buck means low buck. As it turns out, I had most of the parts and materials to build a cafe racer style bike with mostly factory parts and a couple of hand fabricated custom bits.

On the left is the '76 KZ750 B1 Twin last year in all it's junkyard glory.On the right is a pic from November, 2008. So far I have stripped it down to frame, cleaned and painted the entire engine in satin black ceramic paint, sectioned 6.5" out of the seat frame aft of the shock mounts, welded the stock tail section of the frame back on to retain the mounts for the cowl and light mounts, sandblasted and recoated the it and the stands and swing-arm in gloss black enamel, then reassembled the bike to what you see on the right. The wheels have been stripped and cleaned and new bearings and seals installed after repainting the black portion of the 7 spoke alloys.

The only original 750 parts are the engine, main frame, stands, bodywork, clocks and the bar controls. The rest is from the '77 KZ650 C1 Four parts donor incl. the dual disk front end, triple trees, the rusty clubman bars, the swing-arm, chain, sprockets, wheels, lights, etc.

I will be fabbing a custom solo seat fitted to the stock seat cowl via an aluminum sheet seatbase over a steel plate with aluminum sides that ties the cowl lines to the tank. Sounds more complicated than it looks in my head. I may make polished aluminum battery covers too, if I'm in the mood.

I got the missing outer headlight rim 2 weeks ago and have a line on a solid set of factory headers and upper engine mount plates. A "little" wiring and a battery and it will be running this spring. Bodywork color is either undecided or satin black, whatever's on sale :)

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