Kawboy's restoration/conversion of a 1980 KZ13

Kawboy wrote: It's unbelievable how fast time flies when you don't pay attention. It's been 4 months and one week since I posted anything on the conversion I'm doing, but that's not to say I've been sitting on my ass. I've had three major projects to do around the house the wife and I bought last April, so in order to keep peace here, I stopped working on the bike and got down and dirty and took care of a few things around the house.

We wanted a wing deck for the BBQ but the builder wanted stupid money for it and I said I would do it. So here it is.

then we needed a driveway. We could have had it paved with asphalt, but for the same money I could buy concrete pavers and just do the grunt work and put in the driveway. So here it is.

Then at the previous house we had a standby generator and it was a godsend so the wife wanted another one. I could have had one installed complete for $10000 or purchase one for $4700 and install so of course, I bought and installed it and as usual, it takes time, but we saved $5300. (No pics of this one)

So, I have time now to spend back on the project. For what ever reason I decided to pull out the rad fan and look at it. There a few posts in the FAAQ section about overheating issues and although I personally believe there's no engineering problem associated with the original design, I've elected to update the rad fan just because I can.

I've picked up a ZRX1200 rad fan from EBay for $40.00. It's a 7 blade design with similar lift in the blades and at first it looked like I could just remove the motor and fan blade and bolt it right in to the old shroud, but of course the bolt pattern was off just enough that I would have to really bastardize the mounting holes to get things bolted up, so I've elected to cut the top half off of the ZRX1200 fan shroud and the bottom half off of the old shroud and weld the 2 shroud halves together. In order to get the right height for each of the pieces I've marked the 2 shrouds with a set of dividers referencing by placing the shrouds on a table and measuring up from the table. That way after it's all welded up the fan blade will be located in the same place as the old fan blade was.

.......................i got ''shop envy''

So, does the new house have as much shop space for playing in? As usual, the house work is as nice as the bike work! Once again, Kawboy, we are so much alike! I can't stand to pay someone else to do what I can do, and even better, just for the sake of expediency! Very nice looking driveway! I love the choice of pavers! Nice deck, too! Do the posts get painted too?

The garage is 1350 sq. ft. I use 750 of that space for "my" shop area which is the outside bay 15 ft. wide X 50 ft. long. It works and I can't complain. It's nice having all this in a subdivision dedicated to retirement lifestyle so I get what I want and the wife can have all of the socializing she can take in the community. We traveled all across southern Ontario to find a community like this that would also build my garage onto the house. From the front you wouldn't know the garage is slightly smaller than the 1980 sq. ft. house. It just all works and looks like it belongs. Needless to say, all the men in our subdivision are envious of the garage since all they have is a 2 bay garage at 400 sq. ft. (20 x 20).

Trikebldr- Do the posts get painted - No since posting the pics I bricked them all up (all 6 posts) with 650 bricks I found laying around the lot then capped them off in aluminum.




Also got back my other baby from the paint shop. It's been there since Oct last year.





Back on topic- I left my camshafts at a shop for grinding and left them with specs that I could live with. Called them yesterday to see if they found a profile wheel for the grinder that met my requested spec. Got told the machinist who does their cam grinding is away deer hunting until Saturday, so no, haven't found a profile yet. Hope he gets the meat cut and wrapped before Monday !!$#%$^$%^

Welcome to Canada Eh!!!

Yeah, well, it's not just the other men in your community that are jealous of your shop! ME, TOO! When I lived in So. California I had 2-1/2 acres of desert land and built a 2700sq/ft shop (30' X 90'). I kept my motorhome, two tractor restorations plus my working tractor, my dune buggy and trailer, two hot rods, my whole bike/trike collection, my office with my diecast collection and darkroom, a 3/4 bathroom, and finally the workshop area. When her "undesirable" relatives would come to stay with us, I usually retreated into the motorhome in the shop for a week and sometimes never saw them! I could lock and bar all the doors from inside, too! It was good to have lots of elbow room! I sure miss my shop!

Very nice brickwork, BTW!

Love the 928 I had one a few years ago and have always regretted selling it though it was an auto and i'd prefer a later series in a manual.