kz750-4 gaskets *urgent* (to me anyways)

hi all,

hope the holiday season is treating you well.

mine has been great, flying by though...

my problem is thus: my little bro in his eagerness to help with my ltd project decided (while i was out getting dinner) that it would be far easier to polish the engine covers if they were off the bike!:ohmy:

i am now stuck with a bike that i can't even test run or tune let alone go on the week-long planned ride next weekend.

i have sourced the left side cover gasket and the small round one on the right locally, but need the main sump one for the right.

is there anywhere in Australia i'm not aware of that could get me the parts in time? the ones i have coming were sourced directly through Kawasaki, sure pays to become mates with guys that work there!

is there somewhere in the world wide of wonders that could express me the necessary gasket in time? awesome timing i know...

many thanks in advance.

try z1 ent.jeff might be able to help you out

z1enterprises.com/default.aspx

How about Allen @ Zpower in Australia. Roy

matters of cost and urgency both come into play...most things i've ordered within Oz seem to take the same if not longer amount of time as those ordered from overseas. As much as I'd prefer to support locals, still comes down to the almighty dollar in some cases, of which this is one -

Zpower full gasket kit listed at $229AUD, plus ? shipping.

Cheryll at Z1 enterprises has been extremely helpful and is sending me a full gasket kit, plus an additional spare clutch cover gasket, for what converts to roughly $153AUD, including express shipping.

That said, I think I'll get in touch with Allen in the morning to see how much a single gasket will set me back, can't seem to find them listed separately.

Many thanks to all for the help and advice, now it's time to cross our fingers and hope I can get this bike back together in time!

Just a thought here... any chance you can make your own gaskets from blank gasket material? Especially if you can reassemble the old gaskets to identify holes and channels.

I had to make one for the clutch cover and one for the ignition cover. Not as clean as a die cut gasket but still good after 3 seasons.

Best of success.

Like Bill and others I'm sure, I have made my own gaskets from time to time. It's handy to have a roll of gasket paper. Heck, if I needed a gasket for a ride tomorrow, I would use a cereal box for the material.

OKC_Kent wrote:

Like Bill and others I'm sure, I have made my own gaskets from time to time.

+1000

After the cyclinder base gasket abruptly failed after my last rebuild, I made a new one out of gasket material from Pep Boys. I also made gaskets for the valve cover from it. It has held up very well.

The paper was made by "Interface solutions" and I think it had N8904 on the back of it.

You should be able to use any good vulcanized fiber material (rubbery paper) with decent resistance to oil, I think .032" thickness is about right. Most auto parts stores will have this.

A neat trick for making your own gaskets is to scan the cover surface (assuming the part is small enough to set on a flat bed scanner). I've done that for several small gaskets (cam chain tensioner, stator cover, points cover, etc.) and it works really well. Just scan the surface of the cover, print it at actual size on heavy stock paper, cut it out carefully and use that as a template for cutting your new gasket.

anarki650, that's way past cool.

I guess that if the part was too big for the scanner that a second scan could be done of the missing part and then match them up. Might not be prefect but good enough to spot that one missing oil passage hole that saves the engine.

Best of success.

wow, cheers for the ideas guys, especially the scanner one (?!) i never would've thought of that. i've made my own from time to time as well, mostly for cars though. i guess i'm just a bit of a perfectionist at times.

as an aside, i called the guys at zpower, they wouldn't separate the single gasket, only come in the full kit.

at least now i know i've got a solution no matter what happens!

Many thanks. *tips hat*

image wrote:

wow, cheers for the ideas guys, especially the scanner one (?!) i never would've thought of that. i've made my own from time to time as well, mostly for cars though. i guess i'm just a bit of a perfectionist at times.

as an aside, i called the guys at zpower, they wouldn't separate the single gasket, only come in the full kit.

at least now i know i've got a solution no matter what happens!

Many thanks. *tips hat*

You can make a low-tech scanner by taking the cover and rubbing grease or heavy oil on the lip and pressing it against cardboard then inking the outline of the oil print before it spreads. You can pen trace the outside edge directly and use the print method to get the inner edge.