I am a member of MHA (Motorcycle Hoarder Anonymous) Gpz900R -91 aka ZX900A10

hardrockminer wrote:

I have a friend who owns over 400 motorcycles.  He has 25 Honda Sport 90's.  He says you are not a hoarder until you have over 100.

Wow! One of the fellas I ride with has, by his own admission, EIGHTY SOMETHING motorcycles! I'm not even sure he knows. I had to start thinking about it when I got to a dozen. 

Puuuhhh,  so I still have a way to go before I will be a true hoarder. 

Have received three packages so far this week and still one package to be picked up tomorrow but still no sight of the brown seat, the hacksaw blades, exhaust bandages, white walled motocross tires, wire cutters or steering end mirrors.Just a shit load of boring stuff like gaskets, o-rings, oil seals, bolts, collars, dampers, brackets, oil filters, sparkplugs and more.



Guess I have to spend my weekend doing uninspiring stuff like changing all gaskets and rubber stuff in the fuel system, from the tank all the way to the carbs.

Darn, I was really looking forward to the cool stuff.


//A

I can't believe that you forgot all of the LED lights and turn signals.

So as none of cool parts had shown up I did something no real bobber builder does. I took of all parts that are attached to the fuel tank and rinsed it with denatured alcohol. Absolutely nothing came out except undrinkable booze, the tank is as spotless as it looked.



Then dried it out with a hairdryer and left it in front of the heater before I shoved some WD-40 into it to prevent it from flash rusting.



The petcock was vapor blasted and fitted with all new rubber parts. Yup those are not OEM parts but my experience has been that they work all right, the secret in getting it working is in the cleaning.




Then check that it works as it should (bummer I should have taken a picture of the little Yoghurt bucket that I have adapted so that the petcock can be mounted to the bucket so that I can see that the petcock opens and closes as expected) before it was remounted with a new rubber o-ring, next the fuel sender and the lid was given the same ordeal. Clean, change all rubber parts, check, remount.

Tank done, looks very much the same unfortunately. Doesn't give the same reward as mounting as brown seat at all.



Next up the carbs, with all new o-rings, float needles and that missing throttle needle seat the carbs could go back together. Unfortunately the all new hexcap fasteners that I ordered from China (bags of 50) hadn’t showed up yet as the original JIS m5 screws had been badly mutilated when the PO had removed the bowls with the carbs still on the bike.



Then I could not hold back, the led bobber turn signals that I am dreaming about is still MIA so I tried fitted one original turn signal on the right hand side,



I could not fit any on the left side as the secondhand signal that I had bought turned out to be a front signal with a shorter mount. Darn.

Well the next time I will be able to try to start her up, will not happen next weekend as I will be off for a road trip delivering some second hand Toyota 4X4 to the needed.

Brgds Anders

So after last weekend’s little road-trip I was back in the workshop.

Still no sight of the brown seat, the hacksaw blades, the exhaust bandages, the led blinkers, the steering end mirrors or the Maltese cross rear light, so I just had to continue with the boring stuff.
Luckily the Stainless fasteners had arrived from China.
So I adjusted the float levels.



Changed out the old float bowl gaskets and put it all back together with new hex fasteners. Funny enough I found one spring in a bag that I had trouble finding out where it should go, but after checking out the part fiche I realized that it should go on the cable controlled idle control wire.
A quick bench sync with a copper strand.



Set the carbs up on the bench and attached the service tank in order to check that it was not overflowing. But it was tight as a duck arse.  So drain the bowls in order to get them ready.



With everything buttoned up on the carbs, I checked that everything was tightened, oil filter, drain plug, spark plugs and filled here up with oil and reinstalled the carbs, thank god for hairdryers. 

Battery in and run the starter to distribute the oil, then attached the service tank, turned the tap and waited a minute. Hit the starter and she fired up right away. No rod knocks, Idling like a champ right away, looks like the 600USD gamble was well worth every penny.



Unfortunately the carb has to go off one more time as the Suzuki fuel hose ordered weeks ago hasn’t showed up yet. It will be here on Monday according to FedEx, god knows.

I have noticed some oil sweating, and have cleaned the engine like crazy to be able to find the source. Will have to find the  oil seal for the balance axle and will probably need to exchange a crush washer or two on the oil lines.

Have you ever heard of such a stupid thing as a balance axle? I can’t recall of any Kawa engine from the eighties fitted with one. Typical Hipster thing.

So now still waiting for all the cool parts I guess that I have to overhaul the brakes. . . . .

Brgds A

Crank counter balance shafts are quite common, my old CB250T (same as a super dream motor) had one and my current diesel Jaguar has two of them 

Wookie I am familiar with the concept, but I have never owned a Kawasaki previously that has been equipped with one. I have always liked the grunt and the rawness of Kaw’s and hasn’t really seen the need for counter measures. Guess I am turning in to an old fart. /A

All of that engine family used a balance shaft starting with the first 900 Ninja of 1984. Also found in the Concours 1000 (GTR1000), the GPZ 1100 (1995-96?), ZX11, ZX12, Zephyr 1100 and the ZRX 1100, ZRX 1200 and the ZZR 1100.

TexasKZ wrote:

All of that engine family used a balance shaft starting with the first 900 Ninja of 1984. Also found in the Concours 1000 (GTR1000), the GPZ 1100 (1995-96?), ZX11, ZX12, Zephyr 1100 and the ZRX 1100, ZRX 1200 and the ZZR 1100.

Yeah I know TexasKZ I have been reading up on the engine family.

My buddy Dag bought a non-runner Gpz900 last year and that’s probably the reason I pick mine up.

Dag’s bike is a totally different story than mine, after I had sorted his carbs out and put the spark plug leads to the right cylinder and got it running so that he could pass MOT. Dag noticed some oil leaks, when we started to look in to it I found Hylomar liquid gasket all over the oil pan, the transmission cover, even on the oil level sight glass so my conclusion was that the PO had been chasing a oil leak, but just made it worse as the rear part of the frame was just lump of oil and road grime. So on Dag’s bike we are changing basically all gaskets, o-rings, oil seals and crush washers. The further in we dig the more stupid stuff we find. They had put the transmission cover back without a gasket, just Hylomar, so oil was even coming out through the bolts and doing so that had manage to  damage the oils seals while at it.

As I started to find my way around the ZX engine family I thought that I could just as well get one for myself. Therefore I could not resist when I was offered mine for dirt cheap. Well knowing that the rods could be bad. On the way I had understood that the later larger displacement engines where of the same type, giving me the option of picking up a grumpier engine if mine where shot and still coming out of with a decent deal.

But still I find the solution of putting the torsion bar for the balance shaft on the outside of the engine though a oil-seal and thereby adding a potential leakage point a odd.

For now I am happy that we didn’t hear a disturbing rod knock when we started it up yesterday, so I guess I have to pass on putting a 1200cc engine in .

//A   

Looks like the previous owner of Dag’s bike should have his toolbox welded shut, and maybe all of his fingers taped together.
One reason, maybe the only reason, for the external bits is so the balancer can be adjusted, since it must be adjusted with the engine running.

Right TexasKZ, and apparently the Dag’s bike had in and out of a commercial bike shop that had “rebuilt the carbs”, sure all brass parts where new the carb bodies had not been cleaned, float levels not set and they were totally out of sync. Screws manhandled beyond recognition and oil seal lips folded. We don’t know if the Hylomar gasket also was a result of their exquisite craftsman ship.

This is what I looked like when we removed the trans cover.



Yesterday it went back together with new gasket, oil seals, o-rings, fasteners, sorry for the shitty photo. This is not a restoration therefore Dag hasn’t repainted the covers.



Dag chickened out when I told him to drop the oilpan, sure it’s a bich with the engine in the frame and the exhaust fitted, but when I ordered parts I got him the gasket and the O-ring and I bet the pan will come off before midsummer.

Funny thing that counterbalance shaft, I had understood that it can be adjusted, but had not read up on how.



Quite obvious that the oil seal was shot.



The old oil seal came out without any problems, rock hard off course. And a new was easily pushed in after some cleaning.



I made a little scribe line on torque bars splines  so it went back just as it had been before. Will check that setting when it’s time to sync the carbs.

Yeah, yeah next time I order Bobber parts I will make sure I tick the Express mail options, as I am still missing my brown seat. So had to continue to clean stuff.

//A

Just to say, the Hylomar gasket did a good job. Didn´t see any oil leaks!?!?