KZ750 Restart

As I may have mentioned I have a KZ750 twin in the garage with the goal of restarting it and getting it road worthy.

Bled the brakes and pushed through some new fluid, drained the oil, and today I measured the valve clearances and prepared for removing the cylinder head. The head was leaking oil from the left hand side, the Kawasaki has oil ways sealed by o rings the move the oil into the cam chamber, and I think it is leaking from there. I hope I will see the damaged O ring tomorrow when I get the head off.

On another subject I removed and cleaned the RD350 's carbs and the 500 is a part awaiting for a rebuild. I have made contact with a guy who can rebuild the cranks with the thrust washers at the big end.

No news is good news?

Clutch Basket holding tool

Carbs and crap

Well I have been pretty busy recently and haven't had much time to post.  Here is a quick summary.
I have built up an FZR engine partly with bits that Bil gave me and partly from the engine that I got that had been in the water at some stage.
As on most engines the crankcases are matched so I went with Bils cases and the cylinder head from the watered bike - the valves all sealed OK and it seemed much younger. The cams came from Bils stuff, as the water ones were rusty!
I replaced the plain bearings on the crankshaft and the cylinder rubber seals and I am now up finishing the clutch cover and sealing it up so I can add oil and get it off the bench.

The RG has broken another thrust washer in piston NR.2 the damage is significant although I haven't even got as far as lifting the cylinder head yet! I am leaning towards getting the cranks setup with the thrust spacers at the big end to avoid this issue again. Have been in contact with a guy in Lyon who rebuilds cranks and used to mechanic for a guy who raced RG's.

I have an old KZ750 Kawasaki in the workshop that needs starting - doing this for a guy at the gym, so I will be posting some of the photos from that build.

The biggest news I have is that I am back at school, doing a CAP in bike mechanics! Every other week in Paris! I travel up on a Sunday and back on Friday. The level is quite low, but I need a minimum qualification in order to start my company up next year. So far results are great

Back home!

Just got back around 15:00 Wednesday 2300 kms, my front tyre is toast (new one ordered), in 4 days. Libby says I should've taken more time and looked around more!

The route on this day, was up to Aurillac and then across to Puy en Verlay, then Annonay and home. Not the most exciting way to get across this part of France, mostly fast A road type roads, but with a flagging front tyre (yes at one point I thought it was flat) I wasn't up to any last knee down experiences. The bike has now been cleaned and the front wheel removed for tyre changing on Friday. A great trip! Oh the photos here are near St. Bonnet Le Froid the colours of the autumnal leaves were spectacular although it doesn't come out in the photos.

Roadtrip 3

I left the hotel this morning in the direction of St. Jean de Luz, it wasn't raining but the roads were damp. I regretted going right to the coast as the weather got worse and the traffic equally worsened.

I took the obligatory photo of the Atlantic and then made my way up the coast to Bayonne and then went inland, finally ending up at Tom & Di's for cup of tea just after lunch (13:00). Just before arriving at their place the heavens opened and the wets went on again. I left their place after 15:00 and headed towards Montauban and then finishing at the pretty town of Villefranche de Rouergue. The bike is parked up in a private hotel carpark so I am having a look round before dinner.

Road trip 2

Well it's pissing down today so a late start is in order, and it gives me a chance to update you on my travels.

Yesterday I left Perpignan in the rain. I took the N116 which although being a faster "A" type road it ends up climbing into the Pyrenees at Font Romeu which is a ski resort, if I am not mistaken I think I went over a pass at over 1700 metres!

After that you are in Spain. The N-260 was the initial road of choice, and although starting off in the valley straights and wide, you get to see all colours of roads. Once it starts into the hills it is fantastic, the Spanish are not good at building constant radius bends, they just follow the lie of the land resulting in some surprising rollercoaster roads, absolutely bringing a smile to my face, oh and I took off the waterproofs after about 90 mins into the journey. I took some photos but nothing really can describe the changing colours and the light over the mountains. I stopped for a late lunch in Jaca. 16 euros for a 3 course posh dinner with coffee and dessert wine (which I didn't drink - sober October). Looking at the map I should just about make it back over into France for a hotel. Unfortunately I got lost in some very small single track roads, and it took me ages to find the border, by this time the wets were back on and I turned up in St. Jean Pied de Port at around 20:00. Luckily the first hotel had a room, so pizza and bed! A long but great day marred by dropping my phone and smashing the screen!

Road trip

I am off this week on the Daytona for my first hedonistic trip on the bike. I am heading for the "coast to coast" from the med. To the Atlantic. Apparently the roads are better on the Spanish side so I will be mainly in Spain, but starting from Perpignan in France and ending up at st. Jean de Luz in France also.

Today's part was to travel down to Perpignan, I decided to go a pretty direct route through the Ardeche, Cevennes and the Tarn. Finishing up on a portion of motorway (A75) down to Bezier and then Perpignan. I stopped at the beach to prove I at least got that far!

The roads I chose were for most part pretty good, although lots of the smaller roads had loose gravel newly spread on them, and these were less fun.

Tomorrow starts the real trip across the Pyrenees I hope the weather stays OK.

Ledenon

Pierre-Luc and I went to Ledenon with my 3 bikes (350, 500 & 600). The 500 worked OK, but later on the Saturday it wasn't great, so took the 350 out for a couple of runs.

On the Sunday I tried the 500 for the first run, but even in the cool morning it wasn't going well, so went back to the 350 and PL on the FZR. We swapped over for a couple of runs, the 600 is really good fun and easy to drive.

No break downs or crashes, so a good weekend. Once home found a leak on the pickup again, which probably leaked because of using non petrol resistant silicon sealer (at Paul Ricard), also discovered a leak from one of the petrol connections, so that's all been fixed! Should be good to go for Ales next month!

350 lives again

Well the 350 started much easier than before so that issue has definately been fixed, however still not running right, little adjustments on the carbs seem to make little difference, so to cut a long story short I noticed that the engine seemd to be blowing back through the left hand carb. this turned out to be rather worn carbon reed valves, so they all got changed out aswell and it now runs loads better - so happy with that result. Ready for the track.

I have also been playing with FZR engines. Remember back I recovered a some what dodgy engine with a bike, and plus one of my mates from proclassic donated a whole load of engine bits to me, so I was thinking to make a spare track/road engine out of the two.

I started by opening up the water damaged one, and it's a real shame as anywhere the water (sludge level) had not covered a part it was rusty as hell, the cam shafts are toast, along with the cam followers, however the head is useable, one of the barrels is marked and the others all have water marks on them so I think that would need a rebore to be serviceable.

The bottom half wasn't as bad as it had sat covered in sludge so the metal had not had the air to react with. One of the big ends is a little stiff, so for the moment I am not using that crankshaft, some of the gearbox gears were rusty but in general cleaned up well and will make good spares. With all the useful bits bagged and catalogued (yeah right...), time to look at the other engine. This one had literally been thrown together for easier transport, so the covers were missing screws etc... with this engine I have good cam shafts, a good crank, and a resonable gearbox, although I have swapped over some of the gears as there were marks on some of the dogs etc... and this model is known to have a weak 2nd gear.

The only parts I need to buy are :- new main bearing journals, a couple of oil seals and a new gearbox sprocket!
oh and both secondary gearbox shafts have useless threads (sprocket nut), so will need either replacing or bodging.

A quick look on ebay, and got a complete gearbox for $50, however someone suggested a fix, so here it is, a 3.0mm hole drilled through the damged thread and then the sprocket will be held by a washer and split pin!

I was a bit worried about drilling through the hardened steel, but it was OK, and I didn't even break a drill bit. So the gearbox is now in place in the upper crankcase.

Right working out the size of the main bearing journals is a bit of a faff. Yamaha have etched 2 sets of numbers, one of the left hand crank web and the other on the crankcase.

The number on the Crank in this case 2112221112 refers to the size of the crank bearing surfaces. The crankcase number 454645 refers to the crankcase journal seats, you may notice that the numbers are not the same length, that's because Yam added the con-rod bearing surface sizes, so as I am not touching the con-rods I can ignore the right hand side 4 numbers. So that gives me : 211222 and 454645.

In order to work out the journals to purchase you need to subtract the relevant pairs. That means :
4-2=2
5-1=4
4-1=3
6-2=4
4-2=2
5-2=3
With this you go to your favourite online shop (or local dealer) and order your journals. I have 2x2, 2x3 and 2x4 and these are colour coded to be 2 x 2 black (1WG11416-10), 2 x 3 brown (1WG11416-20) and finally 2 x 4 green (1WG11416-30).

Of course I am assuming that the original Yam sizes are what is in there and that they haven't significantly wornout. By the way, the reason I am changing this is because they are pretty much all marked up in some way, this may point to bad oil changes or significant crap in the sump which is what I found! You can go through the complete process of measuring clearances with Plastigage, but to be honest I couldn't be fussed, let's hope this was not a foolish shortcut.

Will update you when I get my bits....

New Piston

A bit disappointed with my new piston, it looks like it has been water damaged or something. It doesn't seem to be physically compromised, so it went in, after a good clean. The new and old pistons are physically the same - 210 grams

It went in, no problem and the rings were in perfect condition so should be OK. I broke the temperature thermocouple as it was all going back, but one from my FZR stock of parts will fit. Just need to fill up liquids tomorrow and see if it works!

RD 350 Update

Just to make a note of the squish values, measured with the existing pistons (one cracked and the other OK).

Nothing surprising really all around 1.0mm which is appropriate for a 175cc cylinder.

Cleaned the head up and the piston (for measuring the squish), stuck the bits of solder on to the top of the pistons and then tightened down the head and rotated the engine one time to ensure the solder got squished on both sides. The cylinder and head don't look any worse for where, but this is becoming a nasty habit every couple of years, so will have to investigate a little.

Yamaha 350

Just back from hols. in Scotland and back to 30 degrees centigrade in the workshop! The 350 had been getting really difficult to start - only pushing it would work, so I was troubleshooting before the holiday, the left hand carb was missing the idle screw so I thought I had found it, anyway I sourced a new idle screw and it was exactly the same!

So with fuel and a spark, the next thing is compression. I pulled the generator cover to see if the left hand crank seal was blowing, and no oil in there, so I decided to remove the head, once it was off it was clear what the problem was.... The piston was cracked on the crown and all the way down to the gudgeon pin, this is potentially the 3rd time this has happened. Maybe the consequence of over revving....?

I have purchased a Mitaka replacement that I am assured is exactly the same as the cracked one, £60 from PJE motorcycle Engineering posted.

Daytona and RG

The new frame rails added back

Before

Before

After modification

The Daytona fell of it's stand! That's the second time since I've had it (11 years). The clutch lever snapped, and the front indicator pushed back into the fairing cracking it significantly. The engine cover and passenger footrest took the rest. Today I got around to seeing what could be done. I managed to superglue the fairing and clean up the other scratches with a touch up paint stick (an old one from Olly's Decathlon bike). I also touched up the black on the engine cover and rear wheel hub. All done and looks OK from a distance..... Will wait for a better fairing panel on eBay.

I finished messing with the RG frame and put things back together, lots of shag and hassle but it's back and looking better than before.

Street 20k Service

I had already changed the oil and filter at 15k, so the only thing left, was to change the air filter (a pipercross) and plugs, (you should also check the valves but that will wait a bit - this winter). The bike had passed the 20k kms and I completed the service at 20434 kms.

To get at the air box, you need to remove the tank, which pivots up once the two front allen screws are removed, you can use the provided (under the seat) prop to hold the tank up while you look at the fuses, but to get at the air box you need to remove the tank completely by removing the bolt going through the rear of the tank, and then disconnecting the 2 electrical connectors and then removing the petrol quick connector by sliding up the orange/red clip to access the two black push buttons which allow the quick release connector to come away with very little spillage (none in my case).

The top of the air box has all the electrics on it including the ECU and the fuse box, but this all flips to the left hand side once the 8 self tapping screws have been removed. In order to change the plugs you need to remvoed the airbox completely, this is held on by the 6 screws going through the throttle body bell mouths, and one screw (very tight) at the front which once loosened allows the air box to slide towards the rear, there are two pipes one front left and the other rear right, which attempt to stop the air box sliding rearwards! I also disconnected a big electrical connector situated behind the air box getting in the way.

Each coil can be disconneted and then removed (pretty stiff) by pulling, however the LHS cylinder needs some pipework moving out of the way (I think it's emmissions stuff), I also need to remove the LHS small plastic cover in order to get the spark plug socket into the hole and move the multiple cables out of the way. Replacing this piece of plastic provided some entertainment getting it to fit appropriately!

With the 3 plugs changed the re-assembley went OK, apart from the plastic panel above and routing the tank overflow pipes through to behind the swinging arm.

Modifying the RG frame

As you may remember I bought a second hand frame when I was getting my old one straightened. Well it wasn't a fantastic purchase as the sub frame had been altered and it wasn't at all straight, so I set about straightening it today.

I don't know if the previous owner wanted a different angle for his rear end or what, but the left hand strut had been cut and rewelded at the wrong angle, he had also removed the supporting struts from both sides, and replaced them on one side with a piece of plate, all pretty badly welded.

I cut loose the plate, and cut through the upper strut where it had been welded, I then had enough flexibility in the strut to bend it into position.

I am buying some 20x20x2 square aluminium tube which I will use to replace the diagonale struts to support the weight.

I will followup with more photos when I get the tube.

Jets & needles

42 mms of free cable length

The RG ran really well on Tuesday (best for a long time), but I still felt it could have an easier transition from off pipe to on pipe.

It was at the top clip position and I wanted to lean it off, but already at the top that was impossible due to being at the top clip position, so against my better judgement I raised the needle one clip position, it revs nicely on the stand but I really need to test again.

I also moved the FZR  needles up to richen it up, I took it for a test drive and it had really improved and the new rear BT45 has all but cured any white lining. I think I am at the best setup for the 600, although it still vibrates significantly at high revs.... Maybe jetting up more would smooth it out or balancing the carbs again....

Ledenon Track day

Went down to Ledenon for a quick track day with LPP. Good organization and as it was midweek there were only about 40 bikes. Split that into 2 groups and you finish with 9 sessions per group! 5 sessions in the morning and 4 in the pm. The last session of the morning was a 30mins session as was the last session of the day.

The RG now running 100% on all 4 was wheelying in the first 3 gears going up the hill! Showing impressive power at high rpm. Also a lot better in the midrange although still difficult to ride as it comes on pipe!

I did the long session before lunch on the 350, to give the RG a rest also to save petrol otherwise I wasn't going to make it to the end of the day! The 350 was difficult to start (pilot jets) but once running it worked really well a part from a few missed gears (think its the box not me).

The temperature was around 40 c in the sun and after each run I downed a litre of water, however I started getting cramps in the legs  after the first 2 sessions in the pm. I managed to complete another session, alternating the bikes helped as the positions are different, the last session I missed as really I didn't have enough petrol, and the body was no longer responding correctly.

Anyway packed the van and how by 19:30. An excellent day, about 65 litres of SP98, a couple of litres of oil and no issues! I can't remember when I had such a successful outing!