A Newbies Adventures in Maintenanceland!

the ones that are in the gasket set...

So after a couple weeks of travelling and drinking and NOT working on the bike I finally got a couple hours yesterday. I spent most of the time cleaning up and organizing the garage while I let the VHT cure on the exhaust header.

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I also recently got an ’08 ZX10 master cylinder to replace my stocker and make some much needed room on my drag bars.

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All I need to get is a fluid reservoir cup. The brake lines hook up underneath on the back side. I was worried I wouldn’t have room to fit everything, but there is room to spare!

I did a little bit of cleaning on the valve cover, and am going to scrub the block in the sink tonight to start getting things shiny

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I mentioned in the first post that I like to keep things organized and that this helps keep me from getting overwhelmed, I got a bunch of PET bottles from work and screwed the lids to the garage. I then labeled the bottles and kept my valve train organized while they sit in a bath of WD40, which when given some time does a good job at loosening carbon buildup

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I just thought of a question. As I mentioned I am going to take the block and head to a laundry sink and scrub them with some strong detergent and hot water to get them really nice and sexy. I am just wondering if a layer of WD40 would be sufficient to keep the bores from rusting afterwards. I am thinking that WD40 might be too thin. I have some assembly lube, would that be better? Alternatively would it be better to just keep it greasy and dirty untill after I hone the bores, and then clean and assembly lube them?

Great progress you have going on there. I'd recommend to use a liberal amount of oil on the freshly honed cylinders, and reapply about every month, if it's going to be that long. The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement.

Keep the progression pictures coming. Someone down the line will need to see what you've done, and refer to them.

CoreyClough wrote:

Great progress you have going on there. I'd recommend to use a liberal amount of oil on the freshly honed cylinders, and reapply about every month, if it's going to be that long. The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement.

Keep the progression pictures coming. Someone down the line will need to see what you've done, and refer to them.

If one day somebody learns something from all this I will be happy! So would you clean it now, or after honing it?

Corey I meant to ask you about the ball hones...I was going to order one, and found that there are 2 sizes that I could get. I forget now what they are, but the thing was that my bores were on the lower range of one hone, and on the upper range of the other. From your experience would you recommend a hone that will be only slightly larger than my bore, or a tighter fitting one. I don't want to take off too much metal!

Everyone learns from someone elses work, or mistakes.

From my experience, using a ball hone, it has flexibility in it, so whether you get one that fits tighter or not so tight, it's all about the cross-hatch pattern you end up with. Measure the bore, and whichever one is recommended, get that one Hone a little a ta time, wipe and inspect, re-oil the hone, and hone again till you're done. Once finished, measure the bore, and check installed ring gap. I didn't have any measureable difference from before and afterwards, with my tools, but others might get something different. Not saying it was the same, but I couldn't tell. Like I said, after the first hone pass, inspect for grooves in the cylinder walls. If you can catch your fingernail on it, you might need to overbore.

To answer which hone to get, I'd pick the tighter fitting one.

So I have a 240 grit flex hone in the mail long with a brake fluid cup and a bunch of stuff from Z1E...money money money!

Anyways, I realized that I hate paper gaskets!
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I have been working away at the base gasket for 3 days now, it sucks my balls! :S I have just been going through razor blades trying to avoid scraping it up too much. From the pics how much further do I have to go? Does ALL of the black crap have to be gone? or can some of it still be present? Is there a better way of removing this stuff? I have been soaking it in PB Blaster in between days too. To get the stuff in between 1+2 and 3+4 what do I do? I can't get the razor in there.

On a good note, I got the black and rouge polishing compounds out with my dremel tool:

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Damn, that points cover looks good! It hasn't even been polished yet, that's just after black and rouge!

I have read the polishing aluminum threads, but I have a question. I tried using the polishing compounds on the valve cover (it's not smooth like the points cover) and they really didn't work well, would WENOL and the other products people recommended work on the rougher parts of the engine? I would like to polish up the fins and everything. Would these products stay on the metal and discolour when the engine gets hot?

As always thanks for the help, and I'll post soon (the Halloween party I am going to is at the house my bike is at...so I will spend the night drinking with my friends working on the bike, can't wait!)

valve cover and engine side covers need lots of block sanding by hand 1st if you want the work you put into polishing to pay off

OHHH that makes sense, so you sand it smooth, then polish it up! cool, what grit would you recommend like 220? or more? How do people sand the fins? I have seen them looking shiny too, dremel?

Polished fins will not be easy because it is pretty rough compared to the covers. I have heard of people using rope between the fins to get them cleaned up but I have never tried it

I think I will wetsand my valve cover smooth before I get the black and rouge compounds on it, but for the fins I was thinking using my dremel with some sanding attachment to smooth the fins down, then dremeling on some polishing compound after.

All of the gasket material needs to be remioed. I used one of those pocket screwdrivers, and ever-so-carefully scraped the gasket material off between the cylinders. No sealant is recommended to adhere the base gasket, or head gaskets. The cleaner you get the surface, the better chance you don't get any seeping over time.