Your Z – Z1BEBE & slmjim (ladies first) – Z1 Collection

The following Z collection is owned by “Z1BEBE and slmjim” from the USA.

My first Z. Lovingly referred to as One-of-Six. slmjim bought this new in Feb. 1974. It was snowing a little when I rode it home. Original factory paint, Lester mags, Jardine 4-2 crossover pipes with very rare Bassani collectors, Koni shocks, very early Corbin seat, small Honda CB 350 turn signals on short stalks. I liked the dual disks on HER Z1 so much I spent a few years piecing together the kit to do mine. Currently showing 63,000+ mi. Got it geared way tall (16/33). It’s the one I reach for if I want to cover a lot of ground in a hurry. Otherwise stock drivetrain. Nothing has been done to this bike than can’t be undone in one day back to stock. slmjim & Z1BEBE did lots of huggy-poo / kissy-poo courtin’ & sparkin’ on One-of-Six during the mid-to-late 1980’s.

This was our second Z, named Two-of-Six, and is the personal ride of The Lovely Z1BEBE. By this time, all that  huggy-poo, kissy-poocourtin’ & sparkin’ had led to… married-poo. But, unlike many women, Z1BEBE wanted her own ride!  She’s put 29,000 mi. on it since we bought it locally in 1989. Currently showing 34,000+ mi. It replaced a Honda CB 360T that was her training wheels. Stock drivetrain. Original factory paint, and correct OEM pipes. A stock Z-1 is a fairly tall streetbike, so we customized it for her with Lester mags, including a 16″ Lester rear, 1/2″ understock Mulholland shocks, custom-made, LTD-style seat, S&S internal fork kit, all achieving a lowered seat height by almost 2″. It came to us with the dual disks. It has one of the most beautiful, pronounced primary gear whines we’ve ever heard from a Z1. slmjim rides it sometimes just to listen to the music. It’s a perk of being her lowly wrench.

This was our third Z, Three-of-Six., bought locally, pretty much as you see it here. Original factory paint. Stock drivetrain.   As close to box stock as the current parts situation will allow. This bike is the reason slmjim taught himself how to true spoke wheels. The front and rear wheels were out of round just enough that as the high & low spots went in and out of sync with each other it just was not pleasant to ride. Mismatched set of OEM pipes; two from Z1s, two from KZ900s.

Our fourth Z; Four-of-Six. Original factory paint(!). This one had been parked under a blanket in a barn for 12 yrs. that had flooded at least once. The high water mark was just under the intakes ports, so water never entered the internals. Otherwise had been put to bed right; tank & carbs drained, gas cap cracked open, battery removed. Z1BEBE secretly thought slmjim had lost his mind the first time she saw it, but he could see the diamond in the rough. It required 18 months of near-daily effort to bring this one back from the brink.  We spent two months alone on the paint, carefully rubbing with jewelers rouge to salvage the original paint.  Stock drivetrain. OEM stamped Z1 pipes. Currently showing 14,000+ mi.

Our Fifth Z. Wait for it….. Five-of-Six. As close to box stock as current parts availability will allow. NOS tankset. An easy 3 month restoration. Stock drivetrain.   OEM pipes. Currently at 23,000+ mi.

Six-of-Six. This bike came to us as a total basket case; bare frame, and a dozen or more boxes of disorganized, grimy parts. Correct-numbered, empty motor cases, along with a stuck Z1B motor for a donor crank and transmission. Otherwise, almost all of the correctly date-coded parts needed to reassemble a late ’72 Z1 from scratch were present in the boxes. A generous helping of parts from other, later-production Z1s (and a few unknowns) were also scattered throughout, complicating the restoration process by orders of magnitude (which one of these two or half-dozen widgets is correct for a ’72?) To make it a Euro-lookalike we procured an aftermarket Japanese yellow/green tankset. We were lucky enough to find a correct set of ribless carbs for it at Mid-Ohio last year! Those are correct, un-stamped OEM pipes we had luckily procured years ago in anticipation of someday finding a home for them on the correct bike. Stock drivetrain.   Six-of-Six fired up for the first time for over 25 yrs. in Aug., 2016, after a seven year restoration effort by slmjim & Z1BEBE. An upcoming restoration article in the VJMC magazine will carry the appropriate title – “The Seven Year itch”. As of early 2017, showing 137 mi. on the restoration.
This bike, Six-of-Six, realizes a long-standing goal of ours; completing the six-bike production set of Z1s.

Page added to website on 31st May 2019.
Most recent page update: 27th March 2020.