new to me 1978 KZ 1000

hardrockminer wrote:

I broke one turning the engine over with a wrench while setting timing.  Ever since I use my kick start to turn the engine over.

Did you break the advancer bolt or the pin?
I broke the bolt as pictured on page 2
It looked like a fairly stout bolt. Until I broke it, and realized it has that taper!
I just replaced it with a regular bolt. 
should be alright? Yes/No
 

It should be that exact bolt. It's made to hold grease. You can get them on eBay.
Steve

I broke the pin.  This was while timing the engine after a complete reassembly.  Had to pull it apart again and take the crank to a machinist to remove the old pin and replace it.

hardrockminer wrote:

I broke the pin.  This was while timing the engine after a complete reassembly.  Had to pull it apart again and take the crank to a machinist to remove the old pin and replace it.

SWest wrote:

It should be that exact bolt. It's made to hold grease. You can get them on eBay.
Steve

Does the grease go in the V groove or in the tapered part up near the head of the bolt?
If it goes in the V groove, I imagine it's grease for the spark advance ?!
What is the purpose of the tapered part by the bolt head?

 

So took your advice to get the proper bolt. I looked around on eBay. Cheapest I could find was $25 on my door step.
Being the cheap bi... frugal guy I try to be. I made my own. 
I found a bolt the same length, but the threads are a little higher.
Threw it in the drill press, and filed it down to size.

I just bought the bolt. I had two and they both were bent. Some places it's not worth it to skimp out. 
Steve

So I put everything back together with the new advance pin and advance bolt.
Set up the points with a feeler gauge, and proceeded with timing.
I borrowed the idea for timing from Trying to Recue a late 1970 KZ thread.
Thanks Wdhewson.
First try 1and 4 set up nice, tried 2-3 but I ran out of adjustment. With both the point plate and base plate all the way to one side.
Took it all apart, thinking I messed up somewhere.  Put it all back, set 2-3 first this time. All is good. Now I run out of adjustment on 1-4.
I know it's got to be some simple that I'm missing. I stared at for an hr, but it didn't fix it's self! LOL 


Buckled down to the fussy business of setting the ignition timing with the points.

A friend asked me to charge his lawn tractor battery, so I thought I'd get busy before he wanted his battery back.

Both sets of points gapped at 15 thou on the base circle of the cam.

Then started fiddling until the left points (cyl 1,4) would open and wink out the test light (red arrow).  Then the same for the right hand points (cyl 2,3).

The green arrow is where my test light leads went to the points wires harness.  The blue arrow is just negative battery to the engine ground.

With more than a little patience you can get that light to wink out when the F mark is balls on the crankcase mark.

The vise grips on the battery terminal were present because my lead gator clip didn't bite wide enough.

Do you guys follow up with a strobe check, or is this method sufficient?

Thanks.

  

 

SWest wrote:

I just bought the bolt. I had two and they both were bent. Some places it's not worth it to skimp out. 

Steve

I know you get what you pay for. And I was okay with paying $10 for the bolt. As somebody had to mill it it. I wasn't okay with the $15 shipping.
It's a pretty high grade bolt I'm using.
 

When I was 18 or so (let's see that was 51 years ago) I just static timed and the bike always ran very well. But somewhere around 20 I bought a Craftsman timing light which I am still using today. They always need a wee bit of tweaking.

Cra-z1 wrote:

When I was 18 or so (let's see that was 51 years ago) I just static timed and the bike always ran very well. But somewhere around 20 I bought a Craftsman timing light which I am still using today. They always need a wee bit of tweaking.

Thanks Cra-Z1 
I've got a timing light as well.  Just trying to get them half decently close. But I keep running out of adjustment on one or the other.
Am I missing something?  Is the cam moving from on side to the other, when I had it apart?
How does the cam stay centered on the bolt, when you torque it to spec?
Yes, I made the bolt myself, but it's the same length, and I milled to the same thickness as the old one.
 

Hi Everyone!
So I got the points set properly, using the test light method. 
I tested the coils. I'm getting 4.3 ohms on cyl. 1&4 primary and getting 14.58 ohms on the secondary windings with plug caps off.
On cyl 2-3 I've got 4.4 ohms but can't seem to get an ohm reading for secondary's. Possible bad coil ?   I checked continuity, and got no reading. so not shorted out.
I can't get any spark. The bike ran last fall. I took the points mounting plate off, to replace the bolt for the timing advance.
The points are new and I ran a piece of white paper through the points after I set the points. To get rid of oily residue, if there was any.
Everything seems to check out on 1&4 cyl.  
Thoughts ?
Thanks Conrad