Another crane collapse

[BIGLRY]

yeah yeah...what's it's 0-60 time?...actually, yesterday it was 32'/sec/sec you do the math. (I guess since no one was hurt, this is permissible humor?)

[taxfree4]

Great cranes. I trained at Manitowoc's Shady Grove Facility in Pennsylvania for 2 months in 1979. Rode my Kawasaki KZ1300B six cyl out there and back, what an enjoyable trip. Here is a "same as" pic of my scoot, it always looked like it was doing a hundred when standing still.
I put 225,000 miles on that scoot with only regular maintenance, a valve job and one clutch. the only mod I ever did was to have a RDL saddle made. I only got rid of it when I bought my first VTX1800 in 02 and it is still being ridden today by a guy in AZ.

As someone who has had quite a few Kawasaki bikes that model, the KZ1300B, had they evolved it could have been a great tourer on the scale of the Goldwing. Maybe because the sport bike craze kicked in and Kaw decided to jump in, I know I had an '83 GPZ1100, who knows why but I'm glad Honda stuck with the GW since it gave birth to our F6B's.

[jm21ddd15]

The Manitowoc crane is build in my home town.

Just rode up past U yesterday. Went up the coast of lake Michigan, then over to Wausau. That Crane place is quite a large outfit! Nice and cool riding by the lake, was hotter than H inland!

[unsub]

Great cranes. I trained at Manitowoc's Shady Grove Facility in Pennsylvania for 2 months in 1979. Rode my Kawasaki KZ1300B six cyl out there and back, what an enjoyable trip. Here is a "same as" pic of my scoot, it always looked like it was doing a hundred when standing still.
I put 225,000 miles on that scoot with only regular maintenance, a valve job and one clutch. the only mod I ever did was to have a RDL saddle made. I only got rid of it when I bought my first VTX1800 in 02 and it is still being ridden today by a guy in AZ.

Thing of beauty. Did this evolve/devolve into the Voyager 4 cyl 1200?

[BIGLRY]

Thing of beauty. Did this evolve/devolve into the Voyager 4 cyl 1200?

In a way yes, but the 6 cylinder engine was a work of art and one of a kind it reminded me of a Ferrari engine in all the stuff that was inside. With three, two barrel carbs it was a bitch to sync and I swear it had about 5 miles of timing chains going around in there, we used to call it a sewing machine engine. It was smooth just like the F6b when everything was right. The only real issue was it had a very weak charging system and if you added to many lights or high amp tunes it would not keep the battery up with out changing the stator to one with more watts. I had an A model first with the Vetter faring that Kaw bought from Vetter then they decided to build their own faring and the "B" model was the results.

The first shop I ever worked in was a Kaw shop and my first turbo was a 1979 KZ1000LTD that I took out to 1325cc welded up the crankshaft then pumped it up to 22 psi boost, it put out 165 RWH and would smoke the rear wheel at 90 just twisting the wick. I rode it on the street for 2 yrs then put a Tracy one piece body on with an Pingel air shifter and.....Here it comes.....a big fat car tire on the rear after extending and widening the swing arm and off to the drags. Here is a pic of it in the stock looking configuration before going to the one piece body. Had the worst suspension ever with frame flex you would nor believe I had to put a dampener on the front end to stop the high speed shakes and fish plate the swing arm with steel plate and had 1/4" thick gussets welded all over the frame trying to stop the flex.
turbo Kaw LTD.jpg