1st bike - newly finished project - '82 z440

Thanks for the info!

By badgekz440: Rear shoes were in good condition so I didn't replace them,

If you don't know the age of the rear brake shoes, replace them. You can't tell by looking at them --- it is an age issue.
The adhesive that binds the linings to the shoes can fail over time as the glue gets old & brittle. so a lining can break loose from a shoe, then get jammed between the shoe & drum, locking the rear wheel. It happened to me, so it does happen. I was lucky that the wheel locked after rolling the bike off the center stand in the driveway. It would be a real drag for it to happen at speed & far from home.

PS: mine were the originals but looked new w plenty of material left on them. but they were old old old.

I've always been a stock/ or drag racing look kinda guy but I'm warming up to cafe bikes and will admit you did a hell of a nice job.

Every time I read your rear brake mishap Martin it reminds me I should replace mine..... I even drilled it (to try and get the squeal out of it) but it didn't help so it has even less holding it.

Others had mentioned brake squeal after installing new brake shoes. so I sanded the leading edges of the new shoes & also sanded the drum very carefully & evenly using 100 grit sandpaper to remove the glazing. no squeal. ... I installed Vesrah brake shoes. made in Japan.

Yeah, I'm a mechanic by trade so I know what I'm looking at, and they didn't look old at all. The bike had done 38,000kms when I bought it, but like you said you can't tell. Will be a job over winter I think.

Anyway, some build progress...

The guy I bought this from had been playing around with this for a while and came to the conclusion the carbs were the cause of the issue. He replaced the original carb with a pair of mikuni VM32's but still couldn't get it running right.

I probably spent my weekends over the next couple of month's trying to tune these and waiting for different jets to arrive. In the end, I went back to basics and checked the compression only to find I was down on one cylinder.

After pulling the head and barrel off I found the rings had broken and had stacked up on each other and damaging the recess in the piston at the same time.





Turns out that parts aren't too common for these. After about a month of hunting for them, I stumbled across a company in Germany that sold them. And I only found them by putting the original part number into ebay as it was all in German.

So while I tinkering around with the carbs and waiting for jets to arrive, I got the fuel tank painted and made a start with the electronics tray and the seat.

My whole ethos with this build is to try and make it look as retro as possible, and I hate wasting things so I wanted to retain as many of the original parts as possible.

I found a logo that was used by Kawasaki aircraft in the 60's IIRC. I matched the blue stripe with my helmet and picked an orange to match the one in the logo.

Dummying up the logo on the tank



Logo was sign-written and then clearcoated over. Finished tank with helmet



I then got a sheet of steel folded and welded at the local engineers and a super small lithium-ion battery from super-b



Was a bit of a tight fit fitting all the gubbins into such a small space!!



I struggled to get u-bend with the right radius for the tube size I wanted so I bent the ends of the tube out and welded them to the frame.

So in my first version of the seat, I cut out a section of plywood, soaked it in water then ratchet-strapped it to the frame to get the shape that I wanted. I then glued a few layers of sleeping roll mat foam, trimmed and shaped it and covered it in fake leather.





As you can see, the hoop and seat look pretty crap. I wasn't happy with how it looked and it was at this stage that I realised I needed new pistons and rings.

BTW, the company in Germany is called scheuerlein-motorentechnik

Best source for classic motor parts and crank service here in Germany

www.scheuerlein-motorentechnik.de/motorr...400-499-ccm-k4/Z440/

Michael

Yeah those are the ones. Was very impressed with them. Can't believe the range of parts they supply as well.

I still find it bizarre how a german company supplies so many parts for classic jap bikes

It's been a while since my last update, have been busy and bought a new project (car this time)

So I decided to leave the cylinder head off the engine as it's a bit of a prick to put in and I didn't want to scratch the paint on installation. Side covers were polished. This was really ball breaking work with some heavy pitting going on. I used different grades of wet'ndry paper. Starting with 100 grit, progressing down to 1000 grit with a final polish. I reckon about 8-10 hours of work went into the largest cover.

Before:


After:

Now with the engine taken care of I could focus on the frame. All the lugs and unnecessary brackets were cut of, as were the mounts for the pillion foot pegs/exhaust. For the hoop, I cut the frame right back to about half an inch past the rear shock mounts. I cut a section out of the sides of the mounts and folded the metal in and welding it all together. Where the spring for the rear brake pedal was mounted, I cut the frame at an angle and welded some sheet in there.





As I mentioned earlier, I couldn't get a hoop made with the right radius for the frame so I cut the u-bend in half and welded a straight section in there.

You did an awesome job! Nice that you're walking us through the build after it's completed.

You need to talk DoctoRot into making and sending a set of engine covers like the ones he made for his twin.