Greetings and Salutations fellow KZR's!
Where has the time gone? Seems like it was only last week that I made the decision to retrieve my KZ650-C3 from the dark of my barn but I see here it's actually been closer to 2 months already! Yikes! The older I've gotten, I've noticed two things: My mirror is a big fat liar and my watch, clock, phone and calendar are in kahoots to accelerate time. Blip. See? That was yesterday already!
So when last we chatted, I had mangled to. erm, I mean, managed to get the frame painted and set to installing the wheels which thwarted me due to two incorrect bearing sizes in my "complete KZ650 Bearing Set". Well, I finally got the corrected bearings reshipped and for free from the super eBay seller mentioned elsewhere but in the interim I was burning daylight waiting so I pulled out all the boxes and tubs and dug up all the skins and bits that would ultimately need to go back on. Of course everything was thick in dust, grease, mud, mouse poop and insect carcasses so last weekend (Blip) a month ago, I created a parts washer out of a big plastic tub and started hand washing, scrubbing and sanding anything and everything. Eventually, I got to start assembly and put bits back on the bare frame:
I know it doesn't look like much but there was hours upon hours (Blip) weeks of hard work with hands under soapy water between the last bare frame/freshly painted pic and this one.
So pleased with how nicely most of the passive parts were cleaning up, I thought I may tackle something a little more advanced. So since it was the middle of weekend still, I pulled out the rear braking system and commenced to pulling it apart. I'm not joking when I tell you it took all day just to clean, dismantle, clean more and rebuild the rear master cylinder:
That puppy was packed solid with what looks like calcium deposits you'd normally associate with old water pipes in a house. Hard. Whitish to brownish. Crumbly like sand. Yuck! I had to invent tools to get it fully cleaned and after many minutes (Blip) a day of struggling I got the inner piston to come out. Incredibly the bore was smooth and the 2 rubber seals were like...perfect. It's biggest sin is just fading of the cap and reservoir from sun exposure. Great result and I pressed-on the next day to tackle the rear caliper:
More of the same, same here. It was a struggle to liberate the pistons and get everything extracted and cleaned but unlike so many other calipers I've *tried* to clean and rebuild, nothing was corroded save for the pad pins. Even the rubber seals were beautiful. So here's hoping; I've already ordered new pads (agh! another "set") to replace the existing ones but truth be told, I think I could just put these pads back into place and run them another few years. The back pads were of course worse for wear but the front pads look almost unused. No surprise, given some recent discussions we've had on the forum here about how few folks use their front brakes. The PO of this bike was guilty as charged.
Next day (Blip) ... I decided to tackle the front braking system:
Surprise! Exactly the same conditions. Packed hard with calcium but incredibly the first one cleaned up nearly perfect:
Sorry for the blurry picture. It looked clear on my liar-phone.
I haven't gotten to the second front caliper yet. My fingers were looking like prunes from being submerged in soapy water for days and I hadda give it rest. Or maybe it was the extreme freakish humidity lately. I decided to move my work space inside and work in the air conditioned comfort ten feet away from the boob tube and commence to restoring my gauges:
As with most everything on the KZombie. Things looked worse than they ultimately turned out to be. Once apart and cleaned a wee bit the old speedometer functions well. I did discover one thing that kinda' pisses me off though; the input shaft on these speedometers is held captive by a riveted thrust plate? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What engineer thought this was a good idea? A freakin' device designed to live-out it's brutal life in the great outdoors where water, dirt and 80MPH bugs are going to be attacking it at every opening. Sigh. So, I stand corrected on an early post here - you CANNOT pull out the input shaft to regrease it unless you wish to drill out two stupid rivets and then re-install the trust plate with some adhoc fastener idea. Dumb! (the design and me!) :dry:
A hour later (Blip) the postman arrived and handed me a much waited for package containing the last 2 bearings I needed to assemble my wheels! So I did!
In spite of the fact that I dismantled these wheels and brakes and well, everything that was still part of the KZombie when I got it; it was still a challenge to reassemble it all. There is definitely some rocket science going on in the back wheel. One more bearing than I would ever have guessed needed. One more spacer than I would have guessed needed and an specific order to install and assemble or you simply fail. Thankfully the lucky horseshoes secured under my seat helped me complete it and even get the wheel back on the bike WITH the rear brake caliper and torque link (Okay, it may have taken me a couple of tries when I realized that some bean-head had made MY KZ with an extra wide rear axle! :whistle:
Success was mine! I will overcome! I will get to that finish line...someday.
Having such an easy assembly so far, the next day (
) I chose to tackle the front end. I even remembered to
finally pick-up that fork oil damnit! So it was onto the forks. I got the new seals and dust boots installed and after much ruminating on whether to refill the forks on the bench or on the bike, I resorted to the FSM finally. Yeah. Well, it was more like my wife's idea - "Well, what does the manual say to do? Don't look at me. I hate that ratty old thing!". Manual in hand, I poured over the pages repeatedly until they made sense. Only took about an hour (Blip):
So the front-end is almost complete. I have yet to refill the forks because I was running out of daylight and honestly, it was just too hot or rather humid. I hate handling nicely cleaned and or polished parts when I dripping with sweat all over them. I had to keep wiping down the freshened-up rotors with acetone so I wouldn't come out the next day to find them with rusty finger prints. With the front end installed something occured to me - KZombie is a ROLLER again! Wasn't it just yesterday when I removed it all and rendered it a bike-in-boxes?:
Yup! I hadda roll it around a bit just to prove to myself that I could. Rolled it outside and kinda' giddy-up'd it around the driveway like a blithering idiot and parked it for a beauty shot. Well, it's beautiful to me anyway...
And another week had Blipped by. I ran out this morning just before going to work and quickly bolted the front fender on temporarily to see some more progress and get a feel for the end result:
The front fender will be painted the color of the tank and skins so it's coming back off at some point. I'm also not impressed with the aftermarket headlamp. Looks "kewl" but it's shite at best and doesn't fit the stock ears at all. I ordered a handful of parts earlier this morning including:
- Stock headlamp "assembly" - bucket, rings and lamp.
- A complete gauge cluster - as it turned out, KZombie's was missing a couple of significant pieces like the center panel cover.
- Um... more schtuff but I forget now.
Presently on route to my hungry hands via post:
- More primer, paint and clear.
- brake pads
- New front MC (thanks again 650ed for the info)
Um...more schtuff but I forget now (although I'm certain the wife will remind me when the credit card bill comes in :laugh: )