South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

Hi all,

I've bought a 1979 Kawasaki Z500 with the idea of restoring/ modifying possibly to a cafe racer.

Are there any tips and/or upgrades that you might know of that are worth doing to the K500 to modernise in terms of performance or handling? I want to get the bike set up to be a bit more modern/ reliable if possible.

Plan is to strip down to the frame, powder coating the frame and rebuild.

Any tips or advise would be greatly received before I undertake this!

Thanks

Tim

i would go with
brakes
suspension
tyres


once you've done the obvious things like bearings, fluids etc of course.


those three things above will make or break how the bike goes.

Give it a full service too; oil & filter, air filter, valve clearances, strip and clean the carbs and then balance them (should be a nice easy job on something like this). It would be interesting to read your progress, why not write a blog of the work on here (with photos of course)?

Thanks for the feedback. I may do some research into after market brakes and suspension for sure. I don't know if there are any known straight swaps people may know of?

I will keep you guys updated on progress.

Cheers

Tim