1973 Z1 Maui

Aircraft Paint Remover is more powerful than CitruStrip but might not be available in HI.

We were gifted a long rear fender (correct for a Euro-spec Z1) that was originally from an early KZP 1000 that had OEM white paint on it.  Very tough stuff.  We wanted to have it chromed but the paint had to go first to reduce cost for prep.  We tried many chemical paint removers including CitruStrip without much success.  Aircraft Paint Remover worked much better than anything else.

We bought the Klean Strip brand.  Rustoleum also makes a aircraft paint remover but we can't vouch for it.

Wear gloves & eye pro.

EDIT:  When we had The Wounded Z's frame blasted we made sure that it was crystal clear to the blast shop that the OEM VIN tag absolutely, positively & without fail could not be damaged in any way.  They covered it with 'blast tape' (whatever that is) with paper padding under the tape so as to not adhere to the VIN tag and it came out unscathed.  The tape straddled 1/4" or so past the edges of VIN tag, so we had to wire brush by hand that portion of the head with a fine Dremel wheel.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

Great idea Slimjim!  You certainly don't want to use duct tape to cover your VIN decal to protect it from blasting only to peel the tape off and ruin the decal.  I wonder what "blast tape" is?  I'll have to look into that item.

Rick H.

I used blue painters tape first which will later fall off if wetted. Over it I place 5 layers of silver tape, formerly called duct tape (duct tape is now actually thin shiny metal tape). I overlapped the silver tape about 1/2" all sides. I had a long conversation with the fellow doing the blasting, who is also a vintage car guy. When he did my K3 he did great and the label was not touched.
I should be ok. I hope.

So today I started removing fasteners to split the cases, I’m waiting for my clutch tool so I’m leaving the large ones in. It’s a little nerve wracking removing the 6mm bolts torquing them up hoping they don’t snap off. They came out ok but I found two missing bolts. I’m glad I’m taking this engine apart, hopefully I’ll catch all the errors. The clutch plates look ok but the springs are heavy duty, I’ll revert to stock, I’m not drag racing and I don’t want to pull on that much spring. If my hold up continues I’ll start breaking down the wheels for new spokes etc. the spokes are terrible, par for the course here. Zinc plated spokes don’t hold up long.

I also cleaned and tapped out the 8mm jacking bolt holes.

While I’m waiting for some stuff (I’ll be doing that a lot) I’m going through all the bags of parts figuring out what to clean and keep, what to replace, etc. I discovered today that I have a mismatched set of exhaust header clamps. 3 are early style, consistent with the low engine number and one is the newer style. This gives me 3 choices.
Use the ones I have, perhaps after re-chroming
Find one early style of the correct handedness ( they are lefts and rights)
Get a whole matching set of new style ones.
I’m leaning toward finding the 4th matching clamp but whether I can find one remains to be seen.
Ugh. I’m trying to keep it pretty original but it’s not easy.

Oops, forgot to insert the photo correctly 

Start following “OINKJOHNSON” on eBay he has a nice early set that ends Tuesday. As long has his cult followers don’t drive it up crazy.
plus he ships flat rate priority at cost. $7 for small box. $13 for medium. USPS priority works same to Hawaii.
he has dismantled 3 Z1’s in the past month. Had a lot of nice stock parts sell. Check his sold items out!
You are doing a nice job! You know what your doing.
I helped a lot of people build bikes 10 to 20 years back. I started selling on eBay in 2000. Sold a lot to Australia, Japan, England. I had lots of Z1 parts.
Marty in Buffalo, NY

I did not read back. But I see there are HD cylinder studs. Are you going to run large displacement? Or go back to 66 or 70mm pistons?
seeing another topic about oil flow to head? Larger studs, restrict oil flow?
I drilled the barrel’s 4 outer stud holes larger with a 1260 once.
you might want stock studs back in it?

Yes, lots of waiting for stuff to arrive...it took me two years to restore my Z1B. 

Those exhaust rings will clean up nicely.  There may not be a need to rechrome.

A guy can go crazy trying to do a good resto.  If you're planning to do concours....be aware that your plug wires are date coded!  I have a friend who did 1006 not long ago and he managed to find some originals in Europe in new condition.  He actually found original tires!

 Larger studs, restrict oil flow?
Quoting Marty

Marty I have larger studs in my motor for  many , many miles and hard passes 
with NO oil starvation problems to the motor 
Dave

I just bought a set of flanges from Ebay, I'll see how all the chrome looks.
I'm not going concours, this bike had too much stock stuff missing, too hard to find. I'm going, I guess, toward a good strong "stockish" representation of the bike. Being here on Maui I really need to make some concessions to the salty atmosphere if I actually want to ride it. For example, zinc spokes don't last long at all, the ones I'm taking off were replaced a several years ago by the po and they look terrible. I'll need to use stainless spokes. My changes won't be undoable, just nods to a marine environment.
I'll study the HD head studs situation. The po installed those, the cylinders are second over. I'm not going to change that, it all looks good. I'm not into making a hot rod, just a good stock engine. 
Most of the fasteners I've removed are next to useless, a mix and match mess so I really have to think about almost all new nuts and bolts. Some weren't even the right size. One engine mount bolt was missing a nut!
Thanks to all for help and noticing things for me, I'm really not very familiar with Z1's. I'm studying John Brookes book as I go and each time I open it I learn something.