The exhaust has been fairly bare bones in its current state for a while, do you have any plans to potentially add onto it or get creative with it in regards to some type of tip or muffler situation? It was a Metzler tire I found on eBay, i loved it but recently blew it coming around a bend at the grundle run, I swapped the wheel and am running a speedmaster now. The front tire you have been running for quite some time is a really cool vintage tread pattern where did you find that and what is the brand? I compressed the spring and moved the washer up and now I have suspension lol. I just recently realized it just wasn’t compressed enough. Mine was adjusted all the way out, and I just assumed it was blown and rode it rigid for years. It also has some grooves and a toothed washer for adjusting the spring. Super weird, yes it does have a dial that says soft on one side and firm on the other. It actually has an adjustment for soft and firm ride what did you have to do to get yours to ride right? So we talked a bit one day about how weird the original shock is for these girders. I eventually got tired of the grasshopper look and stretched the frame up and out to fit the girder. It was way too long for the stock amen frame I was running, but at the time I didn’t care haha. I lucked out, found it on Craigslist in 2016 and slapped it on. Was that already on the bike originally or did you luck out and find one and put it on? ![]() I really believe it just solidifies the stance of any bike perfectly. Enough so to even search out and find one myself for my upcoming CB750 chopper. It's no secret to you that I've been pretty enamored with the girder front end you have on this bike for years. I always liked the kz’s better because I grew up racing and wanted to go fast, and didn’t mind significantly decreasing the value by chopping it. KZ’s have become more valuable so most of what you see today are the guys who restore them and the guys who race them. To my understanding in the 70s most people saw the kz’s as a better candidate for the drag strip, and cb’s as a better candidate for a chopper. Why did you choose to go the Kawasaki route? So when it comes to inline four choppers surprisingly there aren't near as many KZ750 - 900 or 1000 choppers out there as there are Honda CB750's. They are basically bullet proof from the factory and are plenty fast, so I’ve always resisted the urge to seek more performance for no reason. ![]() I always wanted it to be a reliable long distance bike. Have you done any special work to the motor or is it completely stock? I bought every clapped out kz I could find, and have always found it easier to swap than to start splitting cases on these things. Partially, I pulled the jugs one day to find some play in a connecting rod, so I swapped out the bottom end for another 74 I had laying around. Is the motor in the bike now the same one or different and if so give us a little more back story on why. Now we know the bike has went through a couple changes and had some serious downtime since we first met you at the 2017 El Diablo Run. It was stock when I got my hands on it, I rode it that way for a while and slowly pieced together the bike you saw me on in 2017. So what is the year, make and model of the bike we're about to dive into?ĭid you piece it all together originally or was it sort of like already a partial incomplete build from the 70's when you got the bike? My name is Robbie Hardbarger, I’m originally from Daytona Beach and am now living in Jacksonville. Give us your name and where you hail from. ![]() So let's start with all the informal introduction stuff. Just before the 2021 EDR he had it ready to hit the road to San Felipe again and we met up with him once again to relish in this amazing Kawasaki chopper full of awesome road stories. After the run he knew he wanted to change things up and spent several years getting it to the stance he wanted. The bike absolutely screamed down the baja Mexico highways and despite the extreme heat performed amazing. Flash forward to the 2017 Biltwell El Diablo Run when we had the chance to meet Robbie Hardbarger on his Amen framed Kawasaki Z1 chopper. However these Kawasaki Amen frames were much harder to come by years later than the CB750 Honda counterpart which dominated the market leaving any KZ chopper out there rolling a real head turner. Companies like Amen made this even more accessible in the early 70's and with the introduction of the Kawasaki 750, 900, and 1000cc motors they adapted to include these in their lineup of ready to install chopper frames. ![]() In the history of custom choppers as soon as the Japanese inline four motor was on the market people were pulling them and putting them in custom projects.
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