Thank you gentlemen. You are all too kind. I've seen all your bikes and your efforts on this forum and feel only inspiration to try.
I guess that's what I like so much about KZR. The camaraderie of guys who know what I'm going through and with the experiences I don't yet have! Which is the perfect segue for this evening:
Tonight, I got home late and didn't really have much time to work on the bike. I got a start on the final case cover - the clutch cover. KZombie's covers were in fairly rough shape overall, I suspect due to all the exposure. So buffing them up even to just acceptable has been arduous and time consuming. A little bit every day though... Both my wife and son think I'm OCD at this point.
So as I was listening to tunes and sanding, I kept looking at the engine next to me:
The clutch in all it's glory.
This clutch hasn't been operated in decades though and I've read on the forum here that often guys find their clutch is stuck or sticking after long periods of inactivity... So, I'm thinking I should take it apart and ? That's one of my questions. What exactly should I do? Just dismantle it, clean it and put it back together? I mean I have both the FSM and Clymer manuals at the ready and I'm sure those pages will tell me what to look for in terms of friction disc thickness, pressure plate spring size and I know it shows to look at the basket edges but what things do they not tell us about?
What are the things only guys like us, with 30+ year old versions of those factory fresh examples in the manual pages finding?
Tips or tricks to cleaning?
How to separate stuck discs? I dunno yet. I haven't even tried to loosen the first bolt on it.
The second question was then spawned as I began thinking about the clutch dismantle.
Recently, I ordered a bunch of seals and bearings for the rebuild and I picked-up an engine seal set. So I hunted it down on my shelf of parts to be used and when I opened the package I found a single baggie labelled "KZ650" and ... nothing else. Nothing to denote which seal is which or where any go. Doh!
Once again, I assume the FSM will tell me how to replace any given seal but I have 9 of them now. Should I use them all? I'm guessing so but then maybe some are not possible to replace given I didn't do a full engine tear down? And the big question is which seal goes where?
Here's my seals:
My guess at this point is I'll need a hook to rip out those old seals that I can access. I'm assuming they all can be pulled from the engine externally (that is; they are not pressed-in from the inside of the case). But, I've been known to ASSuME and been bitten. Like for example, I assume there is a seal on the inside of the flywheel and while I have not looked yet, I assume there is some "Special Tool" needed to remove it, like to lock-up the engine while the bolt is removed. I'm hoping someone here has an at-home tool like that eloquent solution to locking-up the engine sprocket with a piece of chain and two bolts but I have not put that new sprocket on yet so I could clean and besides the engine is on the bench now, not it the frame... Hmmm? Maybe that's a TIP right there? WAIT to replace all the seals until after the engine is mounted back in the frame?
This week, I gotta get this last casing for the clutch buffed-up and then clean-up a few frame elements I forgot and get them primed. Clean and mask-off the wheels and all going this smoothly, I'm aiming to finally shoot that Black pearl metallic paint.