Margaret's Bike

Yes, that is me, on my bike. The bike is a Kawasaki KZ400 (a KZ400C to be specific), it was made in Dec 1977 for the 1978 model year. My Dad got it from some teenager in 1989, rode it for a few years and then put it away when he got his Honda Shadow a couple years later. So last year when I got my motorcycle license (woot!) my Dad said I could have the KZ400 as long as 1. I had it fixed up so it would run, as it had been in his shed for over 10 years and 2. when I was done with it, I would give it back to him. So I took it to the shop, who didn't want to work on it at first, but eventually caved in and did.

Which I'm torn in half about it. Part of me thanks them for getting it running, and part of me is teed as they said they would put in an inline fuel filter, which they didn't (neither my dad nor myself could find it when we were working on it) and I hope they didn't charge me for it, I'll be looking into that and they also took forever and a day to get it fixed. It took them so long, by the time they were done, we just took it to my mom's garage to store over the winter.

But back to the bike - there was two major things we had to do: put the fuel tank back on (which including reattaching the fuel lines) and replacing the fork oil. First, we took the springs out of the forks and drained the fork oil - it looked clean, until I saw clean fork oil. So we put some fork oil in it, pushed the forks up and down, and then drained out that new fork oil also. We then put more clean oil in, checked the level and put the springs back in. A few lightbulbs needing replacing - as it looked as if the shop had totally fried the bulbs, as the filament was totally balled up in the bulbs. Then we reattached the fuel lines and put the tank back on. With the addition of the battery and then some fuel, my Dad showed me the choke.

He put it so it was on full choke and turned on the bike key and pressed the start button. It started right up. Woot! I took it for a ride up and down the street and it was lots of fun! The float in the carb got stuck and the carb was leaking massive amounts of gas. My dad knocked the carb with the screwdriver and the leaking stopped. I drove it up and down a few more times.

All that is left is to fix the switches for the horn and the headlight's low beam switch - both are in the same box on the handlebar. Then as soon as I get plates and insurance, I'm road ready. Woot!