The KZ900

I've had several bikes over the years.  The first bike that was actually ride able on the street was a 1976 KZ900.  I got it from a friend who traded his stepbrother a sub box with blown subs for it, he then sold it to me for $100 and I bought him a $100 worth of shit on my best buy discount.  When I got it it would leak gas all over as soon as you turned the petcock on.  After a bit of investigating I found the petcock was hooked to the carb overflows and not the inlets.  After a new battery it worked great. I rebuilt the petcock and then the carbs when they got plugged up from crap in the tank. Then the coils went out, I put in new accel coils and they burned up the Dyna ignition somebody put in.  A new ignition and I was all set.  I probably put about 1000 miles total on the bike because all I had was a permit when the clutch cable snapped about 30 miles from home.  A friend thought he could shift it without the clutch to get it home.

Unfortunately, the bike had been raced at some point before as was evidenced by the ignition system, extra heavy clutch and the keihin CR special carbs.  I got the bike home but the shifter forks got bent in the process.  I bought a extra Z1 case with new forks at a swap but knew if I took it apart it would end up rotting in pieces.


After a few years of looking for a shop willing to fix it I decided to sell it.  After several yahoos that wanted me to give them the bike came and wasted hours kicking the tires, two guys called from the quad cities and immediately drove out and gave me $50 below asking price.  They started it up and ran it into their El Camino and I was bikeless.

Here's how it looked when I sold it.