valve stem seals

Ive been riding these 900s and 1000s for about 30 years now and the first thing that fails after a rebuild is always vlv stem seals I have found that if you put the bike away HOT and not cold she will fire right up with no smoke.but if you only ride to the store and back and dont warm it up properly it will smoke the next fire up.this speaks to me of cold valves,top end.LET that old kaw warm up before you ride it.dont matter if its bronze or cast guides they all gotta warm up.JUST DO IT !!!!!!

I rebuilt mine with Viton stem seals and do not have that problem. They can withstand MUCH MUCH higher temperature variances than the OE Neoprene ones. Also the Viton will not harden as quickly as Neoprene in hot oil. At this point I would not use anything else. Unless modern technology fines a newer and better polymer.



www.pitstopperformance.com/kawasaki-z1-k...on-set-of-eight-p-31

Jeff, 3rd party or OEM seals?

Can't speak for Otto's Viton seals but after market in my newly build head sucked....

Do to other reasons, had Larry replace that junk with OEM, no issues after 4500 miles now...

Babbits on line was the cheapest I found, $9 each seal... Yeah spendy but get what you pay for these days....

OMR

Viton are aftermarket but WAYYYY better than stock.

Using Neoprene seals in the year 2010 when Viton is available, is akin to this DeLorean with vacuum tubes in its circuits and white wall tires. Yes they will both do the job, but which is better and more applicable. I bought a bulk of 60 Viton seals from Pit Stop, enough to doo all my bikes.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationHere is some on Ebay as well, pretty good price for 1 set.
300461573544


If you want some stock ones for free send me a PM and there yours. 1 set of stock ones from a Athena set. They fit the 1000/ 1100 J motors. GONE TO BJ, He was first!

They are oem seals bikes got about 24000 k since last rebiuld gonna finish off the season the way it is and do some work on it over the winter.Still runs like a champ and not too often does it get parked for the night cold anyway.Not the first time Ive encountered this condition with these bikes.

14,912 miles... DOH!... I was thinking you meant recent like within a thousand miles or so..... :S

sorry man i just wanted to sound off on my feelings for stem seals that are always the first failure point.I was drinking some good whiskey when I put the post up.I think the government should okay, give the green light into some stem seal reaserch.HA HA.
Ride on and farm out:laugh: :lol: :silly: :side: :S :laugh:

I use to run a bunch of Wisconsin motors the o-rings on the push tubes would get hard and leak I switched over to viton o-rings and never had a problem again.
Viton is great stuff.

jeffasaki wrote:

sorry man i just wanted to sound off on my feelings for stem seals that are always the first failure point.

I agree and mine fail by time, not miles (lot of city riding). I got about 12 years out of the factory set which was something like 45k miles (?) or so. Next set failed after another 12 years but was only about 25k on those (ride less in my old age).

The factor is "time under adverse conditions" This means exposure to chemicals and/or high temperatures, or both.