So.... I BLEW up my motor.... literally...

Bicycle Lee wrote:

I am not a mechanic. I'm a guy who really wants to ride a motorcycle, not work on one endlessly. I've learned a lot and I value that, but at the end of the day I didn't buy this bike because I wanted to rebuild it time and again.

With as much money as I've thrown into this thing I could be riding a new motorcycle.

I can see replacing the valve cover, shims, cams and gasket, but beyond that I don't know if I'm up for a total teardown again, which is basically what I'm hearing I need to do.

I'm just stressed and over it all right now.

I'm with you on that one just fix the top end and ride it. I'd bet it will be just fine. The odds are on your side this time. The filter will pickup someofthe crap and there wasntmuch anyway since it was picking it up the whole time, you can check your filter for this too. You can armor plate the seat, tear down the neigbors bike too since it may have been affected! Seriously though make sure oil is getting up there, you would have heard some loud ticking if it wasn't. Oh yeah one more thing .. BOOM, rattle rattle rattle:ohmy:

haha... scary thought... I understand the concern that metal pieces are floating around and that even the short ride home with little to no oil, even though I didn't push it, could have done significant damage. I haven't pulled the oil plug, so I don't know how much is left if any.
Only 9K for a new Ducati Monster 696... hmmm tempting... haha

I guess you could pull the pan and flush the engine out real well, but heres my point and not the one on top my head.
you spent a bunch of money, and you had a oops so to speak,, whats the price of a set of gaskets and a little but of time worth to ensure everything is ok?,,,,,,,having the wind in your face on YOUR kawasaki,,, priceless

BSKZ650 wrote:

A couple of thoughts,
1 if for some reason the bucket and shim were not rotating, that could cause excessive wear on the shim and cause a failure

2 a small fracture in the shim itself prior to failure

3 looking at the marks on the cam pointed out by larry, those could be from debris from either parts of the shim or valve cover, but a complete investigation will be needed.

4 possible bad lobe on the cam to start with, I dont really think that was the cause, but its a possibility.

5 last but not least, just plain ole, poop happens.

I would still pull the head and pan, get the head rechecked. all the valves and guides, and clean all the metal out of the bottom end, If it were mine I would pull the engine down and make sure all the oil passages are clean, and there has not been any other damage due to metal fines traveling thru the oil system

Yes, those marks are the thing. Before or after marks...that's the question I wish I had the answer to.

The cams came straight out of a running 900. They were in very good condition. The mildest cam Andrews offered for the KZ motor.

My speculation is this.

a] either the bucket and shim were not spinning. IF not, why?

b] grit was between the bucket and shim, keeping shim from every seating.

It takes a cam with a fair amount of lift but also a fair amount of duration at about .150" lift to rock a shim out of it's seat on the bucket.

Another thing that could make a lobe go away like that would be "bind". With a .340" lift cam, that just isn't going to happen, even with stock springs.

Lack of oil should be easy to spot. Things would be blue in color.

To check a cam to see if it's in danger of spitting shims, you can use magic marker and turn the motor over. If the lobe is such that it wipes out the marker within say .040" of the edge of the bucket / shim.....you'd be getting into a risk situation.

Shim on top buckets are not flat 100% of the top area of the bucket. There's that small oil groove that runs around the bucket's inner circumference.

With certain cam profiles / lifts, the lobe can rock the shim. The leading edge will drop into that oil groove. Once that happens....bye bye shim...

Just my opinion here but you don't want to spend any more money on your KZ, but you are willing to risk a MAJOR engine rebuild IF something else is wrong (besides there being extremely fine steel particles throughout your engine) and you have a catastrophic engine failure. I'm not trying to an alarmist, just pointing out the risk you are taking. Good luck either way!

BSKZ650 wrote:

I guess you could pull the pan and flush the engine out real well, but heres my point and not the one on top my head.
you spent a bunch of money, and you had a oops so to speak,, whats the price of a set of gaskets and a little but of time worth to ensure everything is ok?,,,,,,,having the wind in your face on YOUR kawasaki,,, priceless

yeah yeah yeah... I know...
the problem is, if it isn't this, it's another thing... It's been said that if you can't afford to buy a new bike, you sure as hell can't afford to buy an old one. This machine will NEVER run flawlessly.

"This machine will NEVER run flawlessly."...

Look, we all feel your pain and is one way or another understand what you're going through... mentally but that statement is bull shit...

Here's why I say that... Sure, we've all had OH SHIT FACTORS and butt puckers but we didn't quit, we put on our big girl princess panties and dealt with it...

Once you get it all completed, you'll be surprised what that old KZ is truly about...

Hell, on our weekend ride this last weekend, a work bud on his Concourse Z14 had a double take in his rear view mirror for I was still right on his ass...

When we parked, he came over with a big old grin on his face and said this..."WTF, I couldn't believe you where still there, had to double take... I hit the throttle, looked in the mirror and you where still there again" then he laughed his ass off... Then asked ok, what did you do to that old KZ900 again?

See, this is when it's ALL WORTH IT!

Take your time, triple check everything, as Plummen and Larry C laugh at me, I rotated that engine manually and broke her in before I even started it.... :laugh:

When you get that old girl dialed in, you'll be quite surprised how flawlessly she'll run... Hell, the trannies are indestructible for the most part... I mean, you really, really have to screw up to destroy that old beast...

Larry actually yelled at me " Oh for Christ sakes already, start that damn thing up and go ride her will ya"... :laugh: :laugh:

In a couple of days when things/mental calms down, make your decision but you can do this...

OMR

B.Lee, just a casual observer, but consider my thought, Cam journals receive oil via the major crankcase galley/Tunnel (just aft of cyl base) and is routed to head via cyl stud holes/gaskets/orings/passages thru cyl to head and cam caps/bearings. oil escaping from cam bearings provide splash/accumulated oil to lube cam lobes,buckets et;all. A loss of oil pressure to top end due to blockage/low oil/pressure etc, could cause both the damage to cams at bearings, and the possibility of a sticky bucket in turn the spitting of shim. an over torqued cam bearing could also be cause if just 1 is suspect, check all. the notching of cam lobe to me is indicitive of damage recieved from bucket lacking shim. or, i may be full of Poo, but, somthing to consider before just replacing broken bits. ?Thoughts? luck g

I'm gonna tear her down again, but I might just have to sign my life away on a new bike in the meantime. As long as I have a bike to ride, spending every second I can rebuilding this thing won't seem as bad... or pressing. I'm nearing the end of the riding season here anyway... I just have to tidy up the old storage room and hop to it.
Ugh
Thanks everyone for your advice and thoughts.

Brendan,

If you pay attention to what I'm telling you, you won't have more than $100 tied up in it. There's a catch though

You have to go out and do something good for someone too. Don't care what it is, who it is, how you do it....Pay it Forward! www.payitforwardfoundation.org/get_involved.html

Old Man Rock wrote:

"This machine will NEVER run flawlessly."...

Look, we all feel your pain and is one way or another understand what you're going through... mentally but that statement is bull shit...

Here's why I say that... Sure, we've all had OH SHIT FACTORS and butt puckers but we didn't quit, we put on our big girl princess panties and dealt with it...

Once you get it all completed, you'll be surprised what that old KZ is truly about...

Hell, on our weekend ride this last weekend, a work bud on his Concourse Z14 had a double take in his rear view mirror for I was still right on his ass...

When we parked, he came over with a big old grin on his face and said this..."WTF, I couldn't believe you where still there, had to double take... I hit the throttle, looked in the mirror and you where still there again" then he laughed his ass off... Then asked ok, what did you do to that old KZ900 again?

See, this is when it's ALL WORTH IT!

Take your time, triple check everything, as Plummen and Larry C laugh at me, I rotated that engine manually and broke her in before I even started it.... :laugh:

When you get that old girl dialed in, you'll be quite surprised how flawlessly she'll run... Hell, the trannies are indestructible for the most part... I mean, you really, really have to screw up to destroy that old beast...

Larry actually yelled at me " Oh for Christ sakes already, start that damn thing up and go ride her will ya"... :laugh: :laugh:

In a couple of days when things/mental calms down, make your decision but you can do this...

OMR

Way to go OMR! I lived that same experience! :silly: Never quit! My old man told us never to quit. Guess we can do that when were dead.

larrycavan wrote:

Bicycle Lee wrote:

could a shim REALLY do that much damage? I'm serious... a golf ball sized hole in my valve cover... maybe I'm just crazy, but one of those little shims doesn't seem like it could have done that. If so, do you think it would be fine to replace the shim and valve cover?

Walter - you should stay out of things you know nothing about. Next time you need a free alternator rotor, call somebody else or cough up the $600 that Kawasaki wanted for one.

Funny you brought that up Larry. I offered you whatever money you felt the rotor was worth and I told you that Kaw wanted 600 for it. I even told you it was for a friend and I would ask him how much he was willing to pay for the rotor. Again, you told me you didn't want any money and you would not even take money to cover shipping. Well guess what, when to rotor arrived I shipped it off to arai59 and I payed to ship to him. I passed along the good deed. I'm not on this board to promote a business.