Got an email from Steven Youngblood from Youngblood Kustomz along with shots of his awesome Kawasaki KZ400 bobber.
Here’s his email along with shots of the build:
Hi,
My name is Steven Youngblood, I am a kustom paint and hot rod/ motorcycle
builder. When I was just a baby my parents would strap my car seat to the back of the motorcycle and would take me for ride and tips. The said i loved it. Then when I turned three they got me my first dirt bike, a little Yamaha PW50 with training wheels. I remember riding that bike all the time. I tore up a lot of grass in my parents yard too.
Then my sister was born and I remember my parents would take us for long motorcycle rides. My sister would fall asleep almost every time . My dad had a sissy bar on his bike and would kind of lean back on her so she was laid tight on the sissy bar. And we would ride on.
As I got older I have always loved being around motorcycle but specially old school bobber and choppers. When I was old enough I got my motorcycle license and it was on!! I went to tech. school for paint and body. A family member of mine, Tony Cain owner of The Motorcycle Shop, would let me practice painting on extra tanks and fenders for practice and to this day 14 years ago some of the tanks are still hanging in his shop. I was all about the bike shop and biker life style.
Years later, I wanted to start my own business building and painting kustom motorcycles and hot rods. I had seen through the years how much money shops that I worked for were making off of my work. I wanted to put that money in my pocket. So started my business and it’s growing every year. I have built a good many of bikes over the years.
So that’s kind of short story of my life.
The Motorcycle is a 1979 Kawasaki KZ400 bobber.
I took the bike in on trade for some paint work. The bike was very rough and had seen better days but I had a vision and saw that the old bike would be a good build.
The first thing was striping the bike down to see what we had. Then came time to hard tail the back of the frame. The back of the frame was all hand made, not bought.
Then I started making different kustom parts for it. The head light is a unity spot light with a Harley-Davidson air cleaner cover for the headlights cover. Tail light was a vintage carburettor that I built and turned into a tail light, The kicker to start the bike was a hand grenade.
Took a small vintage filling cabinet turned it into a saddle bag. Took a sprocket cut it in half and use it for the foot pegs. Used a vintage glass tractor fuel filter for feel filter. Mounted a bottle opener on side of motor case, 1970 z bars, with a kustom red metal flake house of color paint jobs.
A lot of other small details.
My advice to anyone interested in their own Kawasaki KZ400 bobber project? If you have a vision and passion don’t let anybody tell you different. Go at it 110 percent.
Steven Youngblood
Youngblood Kustomz is located in Busford, GA. They specialize in custom painted graphics to match factory paint, auto collision, and custom fabrication work. They can do one off parts for just about anything you can thing of, and everything from accessorizing to ground up restoration.
Pics by Leon Millette Photography
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