78 Z1R Winter Project

Alright guys, I guess it's time for my monthly installment! :lol: :blush:

Not too much to report since last time with no good excuses for it. I did manage to put a few hours a night into it the last few days. I painted the brake calipers last night, and tonight I spent some time scraping gaskets.

I'm hoping to get the cases painted by the end of the weekend. That may be a bit optimistic as I still have a lot of cleaning to do, plus a bunch of masking. We'll see how it goes.

More soon to come.

Long time no see. What business do you have living your life when you could be building your motorcycle?:dry: I feel your pain on cleaning those case halves. I just did my upper tonight. Lots of nooks and crannies for oil and dirt to collect. Can't wait to see your bike come together. I just talked with a guy the other day who has a 78 Z1R. He bought it new, and has put 103,000mi on it himself. Told me that he would never get rid of it. Amen!

I tried cleaning my engine parts, but found that the best I could get was a dull natural/oxidized finish. Even with gasoline, acetone and lots of elbow grease, it was impossible to get everything. My hats of to those that not only get thei cases clean, but looking new again. I copped out and paid a shop to do mine :blush:

Wow! 103,000 miles on that Z1-R, that's pretty good for a bike that's not exactly setup for touring. :laugh:

porchev, I don't need to get the cases to a perfect natural aluminum finish; just degreased, and stripped/scuffed for paint. No shame in having someone blast that stuff for you. I would have done the same if I lived closer to the shop that did yours. With their prices it's still a decent deal to ship some stuff there and back.

I spent a few more hours on it again tonight. I think I scraped my last gasket tonight! :woohoo:
Now I get to start degreasing, since I'm not splitting the cases I have to be careful with my cleaning methods.

Should be interesting; I'll let you know how it goes!

The cases are painted! :woohoo:

I spent about 7 hours degreasing, scraping, and sanding/scuffing last night after work. I used rubbing alcohol and paper towels to do most of it. Then some brake cleaner on the hard to reach areas and it cleaned right up. There were a lot of places where the original paint had bubbled up so I scraped off the loose stuff, then sanded the edges down so they would disappear under the new paint. There were also a couple of big drips in the original paint that I smoothed out.

This morning I pulled each one of the side covers off and wrapped the edges with masking tape. Then I put the covers back on and finished masking them off. I figured that way would be easier than trying to mask the openings with no covers. It seemed to work pretty well.

I finished masking the other parts, and ran out to pick up more paint. Of course, now that I have the cylinder and head painted with the higher gloss black, they had plenty of the low gloss that I was originally going to use.

After one last wipe down with wax & grease remover I wheeled my engine cart into my paint booth (the yard), and went to town.

Here's the (almost) finished product;



Still lots of work to do, but my current goal is to have the bike back together by Fourth of July.

It's coming together nicely... you've got two weeks, you can do it!

Bad Dad wrote:

It's coming together nicely... you've got two weeks, you can do it!

Haha, that made me think of this! :laugh: :laugh:

Thanks!!

Thats funny Jake. All of my buddies did the "You can do it, all night!" as my wife and I were pulling out from our wedding reception. In front of my whole family including my Grandmother.:blush: I cant wait to see that paintwork on a whole bike.

I have been making good progress putting in 3+ hours a night working on the bike.

Monday night I unmasked everything and pulled each of the case bolts, one at a time, to shine them up on a wire wheel then re-torque them to specs. After that I put new gaskets on the kickstart cover and transmission cover, cleaned/installed the oil pressure switch housing, and put on the crankcase breather. I also installed the starter motor, but I had to remove and reinstall it again tonight. :pinch:

Tuesday morning (went to work late) I went through the clutch again, put a quick polish on the cover, and buttoned it up with a new gasket.

Tonight I polished the right crank, points, and stator covers. I didn't spend a lot of time polishing so they are not perfect, I just hit everything quickly with some mother's aluminum polish, but they look a lot better than before. I also got the stator put back into its cover and reinstalled the starter motor for good this time. Aside from the oil pan I think I have all of the bottom end gaskets on now.

For comparison, here's an engine pic that I posted earlier;



Here it is now;





There's still a lot of work to do, but it's looking doable to finish by the holiday weekend.

:blink: :ohmy: :whistle: That is one purdy engine!

big improvement,looks good.that is an enegine that will make you smile everytime you look at it.

leon

Jake, how are you liking those allen head case bolts from Z1E? I got that set, and they are just sitting in a box. I can't wait to bust them out. I could kill you guys for polishing those covers. I like the look soo much, but they are not too fun to polish. Every little nick or scratch will cost an hour it seems. I have decided to do the finish polishing on the bike, since it's likely that I'll make a new scratch while installing the motor. Are you going to do more polishing or just leave them as is? They look really good, but are you going to go for perfection?