run990 wrote:from your valve clearances i would say someone has been playing about with them ,hence it being left stood
I thought the same thing! I figured the prior owner, at 29,000 miles, decided to take on a 'do-it-yourself' valve adjustment and got the shims all mixed up, and then realizing he was in deep sh*t, gave up on it and that's when he abandoned the bike. Maybe he had another bike he had to ride and didn't need the kz so just gave up instead of swallowing his pride, getting it towed to a shop and paying to have it done correctly.
It makes sense. In fact, that's exactly what happened to me, except I had no other wheels -- I *had* to get my kz1000 fixed back then in 1978, because I had no other form of transportation, even though I knew I was looking at big $$ in shop time plus a tow $$, and also some damage to my pride.
After the cylinder head on my '77 kz1000 jerked free back then and all the shims came flying off the buckets, I realized 'hey I think I'm in trouble here, I now have 8 shims on my garage floor, and I do not know which valve to put each one back on to.'
I had the bike towed to the shop, I knew they'd smirk a bit at my mistake but I had to have transportation. 'Carl' the mechanic spent 3 hours (which I paid for so I remember) doing a complete re-shim of all the valves.
Looks like, in the case of this kz900, the prior owner messed up the shims and then gave up. Because, there's no getting around that #3 cylinder has good compression yet the clearance got much
bigger, just the opposite of what normally happens, indicating he put the wrong shims (too thin) back into #3, and who knows where else.
I most likely will pull the head and will definitely make sure he got the cam timing right. And also thanks for the tip about filling her up with kerosene during the job.
