A Newbies Adventures in Maintenanceland!

Whoa, wait a minute hear! 12 foot/pounds is WAY TOO MUCH!

I go 95-100 inch pounds MAX. Jeff at Z1 recomends just cinching them by hand, then re-cinching after a hot run. He's done so many I guess.

They really don't have to be tight at all, just down and with a good ring of thread locker.

If you can get the stripped ones back in with lots of thread locker to at least 90inch/pounds, they will stay just fine!

Hope this helps.

Also, just in case you haven't already, I'd suggest getting a good quality torque wrench, they're worth the extra. I've snapped too many bolts with the ~$10 ones to trust them at all any more

TeK9iNe wrote:

Whoa, wait a minute hear! 12 foot/pounds is WAY TOO MUCH!

I go 95-100 inch pounds MAX. Jeff at Z1 recomends just cinching them by hand, then re-cinching after a hot run. He's done so many I guess.

They really don't have to be tight at all, just down and with a good ring of thread locker.

If you can get the stripped ones back in with lots of thread locker to at least 90inch/pounds, they will stay just fine!

Hope this helps.

WTF? my manual says 12 foot pounds! this would explain why I broke a bolt and stripped 2 out! I can thread them in there and they hold, not sure if it will torque to 90 inch pounds though. If I put a piece of solder wire down the hole before I put the bolt in to act like an anchor would that maybe help to grip a bit more too?

I feel better now that I have calmed down, I did think that it seemed a bit overkill with 12 foot*pounds, but that's what my factory manual said, I thought the typos were supposed to be in the aftermarket ones!!! can I sue kawi! lol I will back the bolts out tonight after work and hopefully there is not too much damage done to the threads that are still holding.

I went back to the bike tonight to apologize. I backed out the bolts that were still ok, and put them back in with some loctite. One of the 2 I pulled out is fubar, the other one is holding with loctite. I am going to have to helicoil the one at least, and I might as well do the other while I'm in there. Any idea what helicoils I need? would the kit I linked be ok? I have never used them before.

OK, in the manual it says the bolts are 6 mm with 1 mm pitch. will any helicoil with those specs be appropriate?

Sorry man, I wish I could be more informative on the Helicoil inserts, other than to say that I have heard that they work very well.

I've always just tapped out all the pieces together, then just used a larger screw.

Which also works very well eh... and ya don't have to order nuthin.

Cheers.

the bolts are 6mm by 1mm thread pitch if installed properly heli coils work fine since you haven't done to many i'd practice a couple of times before i started on the real thing just to make sure you have the procedure down cold and they don't back out after they are installed.

cool, thanks guys. I think we have them at work so I might be able to get them free. Assuming I don't get a kit, and I have to grab it from work, what sized hole do I drill and what sized tap? the ebay ad says 1/4" hole...seems weird seeing as the bolt is metric...

I ordered some helicoils from ebay, and they should be here next week so I can put the head together finally. Tonight I sanded all my stuff for painting and put another 2 coats of filler primer on the tank side covers and fairing, everything is looking good!

I decided to measure my valve clearances while I had the cams in and ready to go. I measured the shims while I had them out so I know all the shim sizes:

1 in 260 <0.04mm
1 ex 255 0.05mm
2 in 260 <0.04mm
2 ex 250 <0.04mm
3 in 265 0.08mm
3 ex 255 <0.04mm
4 in 265 <0.04mm
4 ex 250 <0.04mm

I will try to swap a few around to make at least a couple more be ok. Turning the crank without having the shims on top of the buckets is a big no-no right? would it be a good idea to take the cams out before I do the shim swapping? To be clear I want my clearances to be closer to the 0.15mm rather than the 0.05mm right?

"To be clear I want my clearances to be closer to the 0.15mm rather than the 0.05mm right?"...

OEM Spec for the KZ900 & KZ1000 (I believe) is .05-.10mm

Something I learned from Larry and Plum...

Ideal clearances due to heat, compressions, head air flows P&P, performance cams etc... Especially in new engine builds...

Ideal Clearances:
Intake, @ .10mm
Exhaust @ .15mm

Intake between .05-.10mm good to go...
Exhaust between .10-.15mm good to go...

What I found for example in the exhaust side, due to above mentioned & heat, @ .10mm clearance, after break in period this distance decreased 1 shim size thus I had to re-shim...

Dave

keep in mind I am riding a J bike...my manual says 0.05-0.15 for all my valves. 0.05 would mean that the valve is open longer than if it was at 0.015 which would make the valves run hot and not do their job correctly right?

id do the intakes on the lower end of scale and the exhuast towards higher end since they run hotter and expand more

cool thanks