Tips

Anyone have any tips to share. Here are a couple of ones I use.

It seems I have worked on these bikes so long that "troubles" hardly slow me down.

I was removing the valves from a head this morning and needed to remove the old cracked boots to get my tool in place. The boots had the original screws and you would know some of the phillips heads rounded out trying to remove them.

I took my cut off wheel and made a straight cut and got my impact out and gave them a good whack and moved on to the job at hand. I got new ends for my impact from Jeff @ Z1E.





This is a biggie.

I had two spark plugs broke off even with the head when I bought this bike. There is no machine shop in the area so I have to do nasty chores like this myself. These things are so froze that a Left hand drill bit or easy out would not work.
I started by driving the wire and ceramic pieces out from the cylinder side of the spark plug with a punch after removing the piece that sparks. You can remove it with side cutters or cut off wheel.

I then started drilling the hollow piece of the spark plug with drill bits making the hole larger by increasing the bit two sizes up at a time until the material is thin.

I then use a ice pick or a prick punch to drive between the head and the material that is left of the spark plug. I drive this down just far enough to use a small punch to drive the material down far enough to grab it with a pair of needle nose. The shell should collapse in on itself.
If you have drilled the material thin enough the piece can be screwed out as it has collapsed.
I then use a old sparkplug with a line cut in it with my cutoff wheel to chase the threads out to get any remaining metal out.

Regarding the carb holders - my originals were 28 years old when I found out they needed to be replaced. I had read on this site how stubborn they could be so before starting I soaked them with Kroil for 3 days; refreshing the Kroil each evening. Having read that the screws are Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) not Phillips I used my modified #3 JIS screwdriver bit in a heavy screwdriver bit holder. The screws came out very easily. I highly recommend using Kroil and either modified bits (see 1st link) or genuine JIS bits (see second link) for any stubborn screws; it really does make a difference. If you contact the folks in the second link they can provide the #3 JIS bits even though they are not listed on the website.

kzrider.com/forum/2-engine/452802-loud-c...hile-cranking#452872

www.rjrcooltools.com/shop_item_detail.cfm?subcat_ID=89

Here's a comparison of Phillips, home made JIS, and true JIS # 2 bits:




Here's my home made JIS #3 next to a true JIS #3 (both work just fine)

My number one tip:

Listen to Ed.

Here's a trick I used to free up some back brake pistons using the front brake lever.
bolted to my spare kz frame.

I pre soaked them in paint thinner for a couple days first

These pistons hadn't moved in 30 years.

T_Dub wrote: My number one tip:

Listen to Ed.

I'll second that.

I made a set of those

JD

RTFM

A good tip on the brake bleeding when you just can't get the air bubble out is to remove the system from the bike and raise the calipers higher than the master cylinder. Roy

I used a plastic lid from a coffee can to make exhaust port covers, using an old exhaust
ring as a template.
Then I took a little tub and tile caulk and ran a bead on the sides to hold it in good but left a weep hole on the bottom just in case

I cleaned my engine by hand mostly and no blasting, the caps were there to deflect the some splatter.

When it was time to take them out , the caulk came out cleanly with a razor knife blade

JD

That's it for tips ???

I'll add that Patton reminded me of how good a degreaser/solvent WD40 is.

Thanks Patton

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