I’m not superstitious but the 13th installment of Zed’s Not Dead ran into a few problems. I’ve been having good luck misting a light coat of Krylon black spray paint onto bare metal sections of Zed. It really freshened the frame without looking like the frame had been completely repainted.
Until I misted the swing arm, for some reason the transition zone between bare metal and original paint bubbled up making a mess out of the thing. I don’t know what the difference was but after trying to remedy the situation four times I gave up, sanded the swing arm and shot it with primer. The black paint laid down nicely after that but so much for keeping it original-ish.
I started on the front brake system and noticed this cool little eccentric bolt that adjusts the free play on the master cylinder. There are so many nice touches like this on the Z1. Kawasaki tried to build the best motorcycle they could. The master cylinder was in good shape. These things are a bear to reassemble but after five tries I managed to get the plunger in the bore along with the c-shaped travel stopper and the snap ring. The only complaint I have against the Z1 Enterprises master cylinder kit is that it didn’t come with the rubber bellows (the part that keeps brake fluid from sloshing in the reservoir) so I’ll have to order that bit.
The metal brake line to the caliper was stuck mightily. I tried heat and penetrating oil and even bought a set of metric line wrenches but in the end it took a vise and brute force to remove the line. It’s not destroyed but I’ll be buying a new metal line along with both flexible hoses and the little bracket that holds the line away from the front fender.
Once apart, the caliper was in excellent condition. I sanded the bore to remove corrosion and the Z1 Enterprises rebuild kit had everything I needed to reassemble what I hope is a good slave cylinder.
The previous owner had the rear axle assembled wrong and my book was illustrated with the spacers reversed so a quick message to Skip Duke and I had the spacer order correct.
The sprocket side gets only the seal spacer while the drum brake side gets the long, necked-down spacer. The thick washer-spacer (that was jammed into the drum brake side) is actually a washer. It spaces the castle nut the correct distance for the cotter pin or hitch pin hole.
The stock swing arm grease nipple would not accept my grease gun fitting resulting in grease all over the place. In this photo you can see the differences. Rather than get the correct tool I tapped the fitting for a standard nipple and screwed the mess together.
I’m not happy with the grease nipple set up although it did allow me to grease the swing arm. I’m going to remove the fitting and have another go at making it look better.
Zed’s rear end is coming along nicely. I think the 4.10X18 tire looks a little puny on the bike so you may get a Smokey burn out video after all. Next tire I get will be a 4.50X18.
I’m making a list for my next Z1 Enterprises order and this list should cover most everything I need to get the bike rideable. Those new bodywork sets they sell sure look nice and only $1300 for a tank, tail and side covers, all beautifully painted in stock striping. You can’t get your original stuff painted for $1300!
Want to see the rest of the Z1 resurrection? Just click here!
While I’m busting a new tire onto Zed I figured I might as well replace the rear wheel bearings. I could have cleaned them and re-greased them and if I was broke I would have. 
Kawasaki made a nice motorcycle when they built the Z1. Stuff like a brake shoe wear indicator was rare back in the 1970’s. Mama K even went to the trouble of recessing the brake shaft opening to fit a felt dust seal. That’s class, man. I’m not sure it does any good because the brake shoes generate more dust than you’d get kicked up from the street. Maybe it helps the shaft grease stay clean.
Kawasaki threw everything at the Z1. The sprocket carrier has its own bearing so that gives a total of three rear wheel bearings. Pretty sweet; I wish my Yamaha 360 had a better sprocket carrier design. The hub wears out and I have to feed spring-steel from a ¾-inch tape measure to take up the slack.
Part of the fun of working on motorcycles is setting up the exploded parts shot. I like to get all the parts clean before reassembly because they will never be cleaned again. Rear discs are mostly standard now but a husky rear drum like this will stop a bike just fine.
Changing tires is a lot of stress for me. If you don’t plan to use the tube or tire you can cut the work involved in half by cutting the old tire off. Use a razor, utility knife and lube the blade with a little oil. Then plunge in and pull the knife. Don’t saw at it. As you cut move around a little and you will find the thinnest part of the tire. Once you’re there, ride that sucker all the way around. After you do both sides the tread falls away leaving two beads. They pop off easy with no tire to create resistance and you can peel the remains off the rims without a tire iron.
I removed the swingarm to check the bushings and lube the mess. Zed’s battery box is pretty rusty so I removed it to clean and paint the thing. I looked at the rear of the bike and decided there wasn’t much more to take everything off and give the rusty frame tubes a lick of paint. So I did.
Reassembling the rear of the bike is going well and the 
Water Canyon Road, west of Socorro, New Mexico is paved all the way to the Water Canyon Campground. The Campground is beautiful, wooded and self-serve: You put your fees into a pipe and pitch your tent. There are clean pit toilets and yodeling coyotes along with bear-proof trash cans. I’d like to hang out here but we are heading to The Magdalena Ridge Observatory.
The mirror at the MRO is an ex-Hubble part of which there were three built; one is inside Hubble floating around space, the other is at The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Zed is missing its chrome seat bar and rather than finding a stock replacement I grabbed this $50, period-correct luggage rack from eBay. All my motorcycles have rear racks. I need a place to strap stuff because I get around, you know? I dig the square tubing and the big-hair, 1980’s plastic plugs filling the open ends.
Zed’s 41,000 mile, front wheel bearings are probably stock and I could’ve cleaned them up and re-greased them but a new set is not that expensive so I popped the old ones out and fitted new bearings.
I had an old-ish Dunlop tire in stock. I bought it new to put on Godzilla for a run from Hunter’s place in Oklahoma to Florida and that’s all the miles it has done. I guess I should worry about the rubber aging. In my defense, it’s been stored in a dark trailer and the Fingernail-Probe test reveals a fresh feel to the rubber. Anyway, the Dunlop is about 20 years newer than the tire that came on Zed so I call it a win. No one will believe this but I did install a new tube in the front and managed to get the tire onto the rim without pinching the tube.
The grease inside the speedometer drive was hardened so I cleared out the muck and squished new grease into the worm drive parts. I also had to swap the disc to the opposite side of the wheel as Zed came with the caliper mounted backwards. They tell me this mod improved handling but I’ll not ride around listening to Z1 experts constantly telling me my brakes are backwards.
My latest order from 
The most expensive part of the order was the ignition advancer @ $159. My buddy Skip sent me a couple advancers in the hope one would fit but as luck would have it there must be 537 different advancers for the Z1. The left advancer fits the crankshaft bolt (loosely) and looks close from this side but the advancer has timing marks only for cylinders 1 and 4. Also note how close the “T” (top center) and the “F” (ignition fire) marks are. The center advancer unit has all the correct cylinder markings but the bolt hole is too small for the crank bolt. This unit also has “F” and “T” close together.
Moving to the backside of the three advancers we see that the left unit has a cup that prevents the advancer from sitting flush onto Zed’s crankshaft end. The middle unit will marry to the crank ok but note the slight degree angle difference on the locator-pin hole. Finally the new unit, like the bear’s soup, is just right.
To attach the points plate I had to shorten 3 screws. The best way I’ve found to do this is to run a nut onto the screw, cut the screw, grind the screw making the grinding wheel cut towards the center of the screw (or dragging the metal away from the threads). Removing the nut will clean any swarf left in the threads. The nut should start back on the screw without problems, if not, I’ll clean the screw up some more with the grinder.
Zed’s exhaust system hangs low and as such has hit the ground frequently enough to create pinholes. When pipe gets this thin I prefer to braze the holes closed. The brazing rod requires less heat and leaves a nice, thick pad to give a dirt rider something to beat on.
Finally, when I fit the exhaust headers I tape around the frame tubes to help prevent scratches. I also tape the headers to keep the exhaust collars from falling down the pipe scarring up the new paintwork.
Back when we were running Briggs and Stratton mini-bikes a few kids had Yamaha Mini Enduro 60cc or Honda Mini Trail 50cc bikes. Both of these bikes were stone reliable and a real leap forward from the hard-tail, flathead, one-speed stationary motored mini-bikes. I had a blue Mini Trail Honda that was indestructible. Riding the Everglades of South Florida the cooling fins would cake with mud and the engine would overheat until it would stop running. Just stop.
Into these tiny times strode a colossus: The Steen Alsport 100. What a machine! The Steen was equipped with a 100cc Hodaka engine, and the front forks were Earles type utilizing a swingarm and held up by two oil-damped shocks. The gas tank was fiberglass and beautifully shaped. White was the only color I saw but there were other colors. Steens were rare around the neighborhood.
Dealerships more so than motorcycle quality determined motorcycle popularity at the start of the 1970’s. There were no Hodakas to be found. Very few Kawasakis or Suzukis populated our riding areas. Oddly enough a Montesa or Bultaco might ride by. These were huge motorcycles. The Steen didn’t have much of a dealer network In Miami so there was only the one kid who had a Steen in our group. I should remember his name but it has slipped away to that place all memories eventually slip.
This is not a restoration. This is a resurrection. I plan to ride Zed, not store it away like a stolen Rembrandt. The front down tubes were pretty chipped and scratched with lots of bare metal so I had to fog a little black paint onto them to slow down the rust. I know all things rust. As soon as ore is melted into steel it begins the long path back to earth. We live in a temporary world; as soon as we stop our struggles and ambitions the things we care about turn into dust. So I painted the Kawasaki’s down tubes.
Next on my list were new steering head bearings. I have a Proto puller set that cost around $150 in 1970 and it mostly is still intact. From that kit I used the bearing separator to get behind the lower stem bearing. I clamped the stem in the vise and a few sharp raps later the bearing was off.
Removing the races pressed into the fork stem is a little harder. There isn’t a whole lot of meat exposed to get a purchase. Some people weld a bead on the race then use that to punch the race out. I’m sure there’s a correct way but I don’t know it so I use two puller claws and force them against each other to wedge the puller tips behind the race. Since you have to hold the claws together with one hand you’ll need a length of old bronze boat shaft to pound on the claws. Most Old Boat Shaft stores carry lengths of bronze shaft. It’s finding the store that’s the hard part.
The new races pop in without trouble. I get them started with a dead blow hammer then finish seating them with a punch worked slowly around the circumference of the race. You can hear the hammer-tone change pitch when the race seats against the frame tube.
The triple clamps were a mess so I wire brushed them and shot some black paint on the things. I’m always aware that any paint work or cleaning I do destroys the originality of the bike so I try to keep it to a minimum. While the headlight ears were soaking in a vat of Evapo-rust I started assembling the forks.
A new throttle/switch assembly from 
I’m close to $1000 in parts now. I’m replacing some wear items so I don’t think those should count against Zed.
Kawasaki’s bold new W800 Café looks a lot like a restyled W800 standard but we here at Wild Conjecture have no way of confirming this statement. You see, Wild Conjecture by its very name is nothing but guesses bulked up with opinion into a plausible hunch.
Kawasaki claims the styling is inspired by Kawasaki’s W1 650, which taken to its logical conclusion would mean the Café was inspired by an ancient 1950’s BSA A7 (later becoming the A10) twin. And that’s not a bad thing. For years the W1 650 held the title of the largest displacement motorcycle built in Japan until the CB750 Honda came sauntering into the room.
For me, the Café looks good overall but misses the mark in a few key areas. The colors shown on Kawasaki’s web site are dreadful. The faring and side covers are a mismatch for the fenders and gas tank. I know this is done on purpose but a bike like this should have an all alloy tank with chrome fenders. Kudos to Kawasaki for trying something different. Better luck next time.
The forks, side covers, rear fender and exhaust all look great to me. I like the shaft-driven camshaft and the air-cooling system. Hopefully you’ll be able to buy the thing without anti-lock brakes but I suspect the days of ABS delete are nearly over.