toolmaker wrote: Have you done much with the bike lately?
Hi Gary,
Good to hear from ya'! Hope retirement is treating you well. Seems a cross-country move was in the works too...? Ya' know, you & yours have a standing invite if you pass this way.
Synopsis:
The summer months were spent having all the surfaces needing paint media blasted, then we primed & painted & cleaned , with very limited time spent on the resto otherwise 'cause Ridin' season.
Motor & chassis paint was done outside while it was warm/calm/low humidity enough to do so. We don't have a good indoor space to do spray paint without stinking up the house & having overspray settle on stuff.
The motor cases, jugs & head were soda blasted, then neutralized, before a very light coat of aluminum-specific etching primer, then painted using PJ1 Fast Black, which has proven to be a
very close match the the original sheen when doing touch-up on our unrestored (deep cleaned/refurbished) late '72 Jafffa Z1.
All the steel chassis parts parts were blasted with crushed glass; that was the only way to effectively remove the deepest-pitted rust . The pitting on the frame was so deep in some places that it is still visible if light hits it just right even after repeated prime/sand cycles. Hi quality etching primer was applied to everything, then gloss, semi-gloss and matte black paints were sprayed where appropriate.
The original rims were re-chromed, with the date codes being retained nicely. Four days spent ('cause we're not experts at this) at the patio table lacing , truing & torquing new spokes to 26 ~ 30 in. lbs. to refinished hubs resulted in very nice wheels that look OEM.
Some other parts were re-chromed as necessary due to rarity, date codes needing to be retained, and replacement parts being even more expensive than re-chroming. For instance, the rear brake torque link was chromed to retain the date code. The old-style, "short" top hat head nuts are NLA from Mama Kaw, and stupid-expensive if they can be found at all. The slightly-later "tall" top hat nuts can sometimes be found aftermarket or fleaBay but are not correct for the build date, and, the tapered-shoulder nuts beginning with the Z1-B are cheap and ubiquitous but in no way correct for this bike.
We vapor blasted all the polished aluminum items, then followed with wet sanding, ending with 2,000 grit wet. Some pitting in the polished aluminum is far too deep to remove by any practical method.
Cylinder sleeves had to be replaced because the pitting was too deep. We have multiple sets of OEM std. pistons & rings, and didn't want to go the the expense of boring 1st. over, so a damaged jug with good sleeves was cannibalized for it's sleeves.
Local guy Steve Mikes, one of the "M's" from M&M Racing back in the day did the valve job & inserted the spark plug hole where the remains of a cross-threaded plug was broken off decades ago. The major internals, tranny, crank, cams (hollow!) etc. all came out of hibernation in very good shape and will be used as is. The deep layer of coal black gunk in the bottom of the pan required much um... "friendly persuasion" to remove. New case screws & bolts are on the motor bench waiting for motor reassembly to commence.
We horse traded for a tool kit sans feeler gauge, but a guy in Germany made some excellent repro feeler gauges a couple years ago & we bought a few spares, so now the tool kit's complete. We already had a couple of '73 owners manuals on the shelf.
We found an odd 9-pin Molex wiring harness tucked behind the headlight that had been spliced into the headlight & turn signal harness in the headlight bucket, so we suspect the bike had been prepped for a fairing at one time. Even more odd was that the brown connector at the wiring junction on the battery box had been removed & replaced with a white Molex connector, and the brown connector on the main harness had been modified accordingly. Same guy from Germany supplied us with the brown pin corrector & male and female pins needed to return the main harness & junction assy. to stock configuration. A friend from Australia even kicked in a NOS junction assy! Everything mentioned will allow us to return the wiring to OEM condition.
We vapor blasted all the rusty chrome bits not re-plated. They came out reasonably well. We'd been considering how deep down the resto-rabbit hole to go since we got the bike, and have decided to use as many of the cleaned/refurbed/unrestored original parts to make as close to an unrestored original "survivor" as we can. The motor was necessarily repainted, and will be held together with new hardware. The Jaffa paint is in
amazingly good condition all things considered, and will just be hand rubbed to restore luster. We found a very-nice-but-mismatched set of 4-4 pipes locally. When all's said and done, it will be terrific "10 foot" bike, correct at a glance and with almost all original & correct parts for those knowledgeable enough to know what they're seeing if they look closely. After all; how many perfectly-restored Z1's does the world really need? In the future, if anyone wants to do a 100 pt. concourse-quality resto of a '73 Z1, it will be an easy & correct platform with which to do so.
Ridin' season is winding down here now. The past two weeks have seen beginning of basic chassis reassembly. We still have lots of cleaning & restoration of minor components to accomplish, such as switchgear, fork lowers, wiring harnesses etc.. This bike will be our winter project, something to keep us occupied in the shop while the cold winds blow. The dogs will continue to supervise & remind us when it's play/breakfast/play/lunch/play/dinner/play time. If things proceed as planned, the bike will be ready next spring to turn a wheel on the road for the first time in more than 30+ yrs. We'll keep this thread updated as things progress.
Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE