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brawr's 1979 Kawasaki kz400


DAD

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Been hunting for a bike project for a little while, this one popped up on facebook marketplace in the Hutt valley and was cheapy cheap cheap. 

I don't have a bike license and have never ridden anything scarier than a farm bike, so I'll be getting this back on the road, then using it to git gud at riding and tinkering with it/aesthetically adjusting it on rainy days. Hoping to get it back legal again while we've still got some sunshine..

 

Here it is when I picked it up. It's been off the road for about 9 years, and it shows, but it seems like the bones are good, and it kicked over okay. 

 

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Key is a bent fork, so that's a thing.

But carjam clear and numbers match, so allG.

 

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See also: Kawaiicatty

 

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Mostly surface rust, only proper rot is on the underside of the seat, and that's getting binned. Oh, and the exhausts are rotten, so they'll get replaced at some point.

 

New battery and some fresh fuel and it fired right up, chuffed! Carbs are pretty grotty and seem to stick (a CV thing?), so will get some cheapy mikuni clones or something on Ali and try them instead.

 

Eventual goalz:

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Got carried away.

Cleaning bits up as they come off, it's all coming up pretty nicely. Got some bits and bobs on order to replaced the buggered bits, so looking forward to Mr Postieman showing up.

Plan remains: strip to frame, tidy to wof spec, rebuild/wof & re-vin/ride.

Good progress so far.

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Progress marches on. Stripped down to frame, removed grime and much of the surface rust, and rustkilled the rest. Bit of paint and it's actually almost looking kinda semi smart now. Just waiting on postie before I can start putting stuff back together.

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