Oh NO! What have I done! My new KZ1300

Hi Tyler:

Yes, mine was a burner! I never noticed it until I swapped bikes with a buddy and was riding behind my 13 where I could see the smoke when accelerating. I tore it down that winter and put new rings in it (at the time it seemed to be conventional wisdom that the first year 1300's had bad rings in them ??). The following summer, while on a cross country trip with some of my pals, we got separated and I, thinking they were in front of me, tried playing catch up. I drove for about 24 hours straight, from Denver to Detroit, only stopping for fuel and quick bites to eat. I had just got to the crest of the Ambassador bridge going into Windsor Ontario when the oil light came on. I shut down and coasted down the bridge into Canada Customs. Once clearing customs, I pushed my bike (fully loaded - if I had to do that now I'd just leave it and walk away ) to the nearest gas station where it took almost 5 litres of oil to get back to the right level. The following summer, I blew a main bearing/thrashed the crank (wonder if there was any connection to running it dry and blowing a crank ). I put a replacement engine in it. I was going to Uni at the time and needed some cash. I had two bikes and put them both up for sale, thinking that I'd keep the one that didn't sell first. I though the 900f would sell first but the 1300 sold the first day (I still have the 900f) and I've been wanting another 1300 ever since. I've looked at a lot of 1300's for sale over the years, most curiously enough were 79's, and although I have a bit of a sentimental attachment to that model year, I'd prefer an 81 or later to avoid the crank and oil burning problems.

Got some paint on the head and valve cover.... playing the waiting game on pistons for now. I'm not entirely sure why I got it stuck in my head I was going to do the engine in black, but I'm liking how its turning out.

The project this weekend was to remove the water pump and drive parts. This is a really tedious job. The impeller is thin aluminum and there is almost no room inside the housing.



I made a puller that was just strong enough to get the impeller off.








Finally got the whole mess apart, lots of penetrating oil and long sessions with the screw impact driver to get the seal holder out. Nothing is broken and I can replace the water pump seal after the block comes back from the machine shop. I may look for a replacement drive gear 30 year old plastic isn't the strongest stuff in the world.

I had a box at the door waiting for me after work today











64mm diameter with an offset dome, matched the OEM weight exactly, skirt is thicker, and clearly shorter. The new pistons came with a chrome top ring, cast second ring and an oil ring about twice the size of the OEM piston. The factory dome was copied, should be close to the original CR of 9.9 to 1. So cool!

Factory piston on the left...

now that's the kind of thing I'd like to see waiting at my front door. Have fun putting them shinies in!

This next post starts with one part, a rubber boot between the swing arm and transmission that covers the drive shaft u-joint. It is clearly torn and needed to be replaced.



This part is impossible to find, I had been searching most of the summer for one. I ended up buying a complete rear end for the bike, swing arm, drive shaft, final drive, pivot bearings, etc. to get a boot in good shape. The parts were cheap the whole lot set me back about $75 with shipping. I thought I could resell some extra parts.... turns out I need them all. When I finally got the swing arm off I found the prop shaft tunnel had filled with water. The drive shaft U joint is toast, the tapered bearing for the swing arm pivot was frozen and the swing arm had rusted so badly the bearing race had broken loose. The whole swing arm is pretty much junk.







Some things must happen for a reason because now I have all of the parts to fix this mess.

I checked out the final drive, afraid it too had filled with water, it was ok. I checked the gear lash and it needs to be re-shimmed. The axle seals are leaking a bit. They are available so I order new seals. According to the shop manual I just need to remove the thinnest shim (0.1MM) and it should be back in sec when it goes back together.

Cleaned up the final drive, new seals and a shim adjustment. Ended up having to buy a .15mm shim to make it work out, I think I found the last one on the internet... All ready to roll now.




My cylinders came back from Fargo! I installed the new oil seal for the water pump drive, installed the mechanical water seal parts and painted it. I guess this is a 1370 now... :evil:







Getting excited now, my goal was to have the engine together before it gets too cold to work in the garage. I might pull it off but the snow is flying already.

congrats on the progress sir .

leon

Got the swing arm and final drive all back together. I picked up some Progressive air shocks form e-bay on the cheap. I replaced the seals in them and put the correct bushings in. Still need to polish them up a bit.

I still have to go through the breaks and replace the fork seals. But my list keeps getting shorter.

The replacement rubber boot...



Back together again

Tyler wrote: Got my head back from Larry..... Damn...

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Exhaust Port

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Intake Valves are soooo far back

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Other Side, man these must have been hard to work in

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The head looks fantastic, with a well done mild port job and new valves should run better than new. Great Job Larry, well done man!

Thanks Tyler... I hadn't been back to your project to see what's going on until tonight.

Those 1300 ports are long mothers. They have the same directional bias as 650 ports but with a whole lot more runner length. The factory was trying to shoot the charge into the cylinder on an angle to swirl it.

I see those new pistons have arrived... NICE!

Larry, can you shed some light on why the piston dom is offset? it wasn't done for clearance, for flow or flame front propagation maybe? it is clearly offset forward about .100 from centerline.