Trying to Rescue a Late 1970s (1977??) Kawasaki KZ1000

Dr. Gamma wrote:

Never seen a Kz1000 motor without a valve cover gasket before. That orange RTV is a sure sign of a amateur alley mechanic!!
I would spend the money and buy yourself a valve cover gasket.

Something doesn't look right on the tach gear on the exhaust cam to me. See if the the tach drive gear is bent.


Thanks Dr Gamma.

The parts diagram certainly shows a cylinder cover gasket.  The 1977-78 and 1979--80 gasket has different part numbers.  Do you know what the difference is?  It might help me buy the correct gasket.

Yes, the Red GM silicone is never a good sign, though it's not a bad product.  I must admit though that the guy seems to have put down a very consistent bead, better than I can do!

I'll have a look at that tach drive.  Can you elaborate on what you see?

Seems kind of odd that someone (PO ?) was thorough enough to convert to socket head cap screws on the valve cover but didn't use a gasket !  

Scotty

sf4t7 wrote:

Seems kind of odd that someone (PO ?) was thorough enough to convert to socket head cap screws on the valve cover but didn't use a gasket !  

Scotty

Yes, I suppose any old bike has been in bad hands at some point in its life.

The good news is that those cap screws were very evenly torqued, and not a stripped tread.
 

wdhewson wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote:

Never seen a Kz1000 motor without a valve cover gasket before. That orange RTV is a sure sign of a amateur alley mechanic!!
I would spend the money and buy yourself a valve cover gasket.

Something doesn't look right on the tach gear on the exhaust cam to me. See if the the tach drive gear is bent.


Thanks Dr Gamma.

The parts diagram certainly shows a cylinder cover gasket.  The 1977-78 and 1979--80 gasket has different part numbers.  Do you know what the difference is?  It might help me buy the correct gasket.

Yes, the Red GM silicone is never a good sign, though it's not a bad product.  I must admit though that the guy seems to have put down a very consistent bead, better than I can do!

I'll have a look at that tach drive.  Can you elaborate on what you see?
 

The valve cover gasket you need is the one that fits '73~'75 Z1's, '76 Kz900's and '77~'78 Kz1000's. The Kawasaki part number is 11023-006. Kawasaki is on drugs for what they want for a O.E.M. valve cover gasket. I have always put my valve cover gaskets on dry too. Look around for a good aftermarket one unless you want to pay an arm and a leg and a left testicle!!! The '79~'80 Kz1000 valve cover gasket has air injection so the valve cover gasket has gasket material that goes around the air injection passage. Plus the end of the head is shaped a bit different than the early model heads.

On your tach gear look at the base of the tooth where it starts on the inner edge of the cam. It looks like I see a crack there. I ALWAYS remove the tach drive housing and gear when I bolt the exhaust cam into place. That way there is no chance of bending the tach drive gear or damaging the spiral gear on the cam. I sold so many of them back in the day I still remember the part number 13223-011. Plus that gear is NLA too!!!

 

I agree.  Since I'm going a little deeper into my Z1 than I have in the past I've found a few things that weren't done quite right (mis-matched bolts, and a heli-coil where I didn't expect it, for example). Had to have happened before I bought the bike in 1979.  Scary part is, as I remember the PO had all service done at the dealer !  

Scotty

This one is cheap enough... (remove underlines)

https___://www.ebay.com/itm/275533808455

Dr. Gamma wrote:

wdhewson wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote:

Never seen a Kz1000 motor without a valve cover gasket before. That orange RTV is a sure sign of a amateur alley mechanic!!
I would spend the money and buy yourself a valve cover gasket.

Something doesn't look right on the tach gear on the exhaust cam to me. See if the the tach drive gear is bent.


Thanks Dr Gamma.

The parts diagram certainly shows a cylinder cover gasket.  The 1977-78 and 1979--80 gasket has different part numbers.  Do you know what the difference is?  It might help me buy the correct gasket.

Yes, the Red GM silicone is never a good sign, though it's not a bad product.  I must admit though that the guy seems to have put down a very consistent bead, better than I can do!

I'll have a look at that tach drive.  Can you elaborate on what you see?

 

The valve cover gasket you need is the one that fits '73~'75 Z1's, '76 Kz900's and '77~'78 Kz1000's. The Kawasaki part number is 11023-006. Kawasaki is on drugs for what they want for a O.E.M. valve cover gasket. I have always put my valve cover gaskets on dry too. Look around for a good aftermarket one unless you want to pay an arm and a leg and a left testicle!!! The '79~'80 Kz1000 valve cover gasket has air injection so the valve cover gasket has gasket material that goes around the air injection passage. Plus the end of the head is shaped a bit different than the early model heads.

On your tach gear look at the base of the tooth where it starts on the inner edge of the cam. It looks like I see a crack there. I ALWAYS remove the tach drive housing and gear when I bolt the exhaust cam into place. That way there is no chance of bending the tach drive gear or damaging the spiral gear on the cam. I sold so many of them back in the day I still remember the part number 13223-011. Plus that gear is NLA too!!!


Thanks Dr Gamma,

I cleaned up the tach gear on the exhaust cam with some light oil and a tooth brush.  The gear looks fine.  In the original picture, the worrisome "crack" seems to have been a shiny spot that just caused a reflection or some camera angle artifact.  And the driven tach gear below looks good as well.


 

Checked valve clearances using the cam base circle on the shim method, with the cam nose 180° away from the shim.

See image for results.

A couple exhaust valves, cylinders 2 and 4, have larger than desired clearances at 10 and 9 thou.   The rest are within sight of the Clymer and Factory Service Manual specs.

This engine sat (indoors, unheated) for countless years so maybe those high clearance exhaust valves are sitting on some dead spiders or mud daubers.  So I think I'll run the engine for a bit, then recheck the clearances to see if things settle in.  Should I ever get the inert lump to breathe fire!!

I suppose I should check the cam timing next.

I think my camshaft timing is correct.

Looks like I've got the crankshaft at TDC compression on cylinder 4 and TDC ex/in on cylinder 1 judging from lobe position.

And the wee arrowhead on the exhaust camshaft sprocket aligns with the cylinder head valve cover joint.

I can see 23 pins from that wee arrowhead to the 28 pin marking on the intake camshaft sprocket, and there's 5 pins that are hidden behind the cam chain roller sprocket.......for a total of 28 pins.

It's not for certain, but the camshafts' bearing upper halves, don't seem to have been off judging from the bolt head condition.  So may these camshafts haven't been removed.  But that a total guess.

It looks good on timing.  Valve clearance should be 0.05 to 0.15 mm.  I think that's 2 to 6 thou.

I haven't had my valve cover off for a while but I don't recall a bolt through the top idler.  Yours may have been rebuilt.  It's the old style, used on Z1 bikes.  The new style has a different top.

Checking valve clearance with the lobe pointed away from the bucket, will result in the measured clearance being greater than if measured using the factory method by a thousands or two. 

hardrockminer wrote:

It looks good on timing.  Valve clearance should be 0.05 to 0.15 mm.  I think that's 2 to 6 thou.I haven't had my valve cover off for a while but I don't recall a bolt through the top idler.  Yours may have been rebuilt.  It's the old style, used on Z1 bikes.  The new style has a different top.


Thanks hardrockminer,

I did note that the idler sprocket bolt was chewed a bit with a sloppy wrench.  I checked the parts diagram for the 77KZ1000 and item 7 is described as a flanged bolt, which is what I think I see.   But since it's chewed a bit, I'll put a wrench on it to see if it's snug.