So what do you do when......

you pull your oil drain plug from your 1973 Z1 900 and you find this???


Later,
OldSkool73

I think your weekends will be busy for awhile...:ohmy:

Hard to say, what with that fuzzy photo... what are we looking at?

Its a piece of metal.....

My guess as of right now is that it is from somewhere in the tranny....I can start it just fine and it runs and idles so its not the pistons or heads or anything like that. I can also put it into gear(or at least 1st gear) when its not running and pull the clutch and it rolls so the clutch seems to still be good. The actual reason I even pulled the oil drain plug was to pull my side cover off to inspect my clutch because I was having shifting issues when it was on the road....

So yes McDroid...it looks as if my weekends are going to be busy for a while....as well as my wallet is going to be busy too.... :dry:

Later,
OldSkool73

Heres another pic of the chunk of metal thats leaving me crying....

Sorry the pics arent so good, I have a sh*%ty camera.

OldSkool73

P.S. Anyone in the Northern Virginia area that would like to help a brother out??

Shifting issues...I'm leaning towards the clutch basket as the culprit:(

pull your clutch cover and oil pan ,check for carnage.

ouch. thats all i can say....

So in the last few days, I managed to start the tear down process. I've pulled the gas tank, carbs, most of the engine mount bolts, forward controls and other various non-related items. Yesterday I finally pulled the clutch cover and the oil pan. It took me so long only because I think I was scared of what I would find. The problem is, I havent found anything yet. The clutch basket looks good and I can still shift it into gear. All the gears and crank and rods and pistons, or what I can see from pulling the oil pan, look good. I guess now I am going to have to start pulling the clutch and the outer transmission parts today. My question is, is it possible to only work on the lower end without pulling the top end such as the cylinders and valves and the like?? I have great compression and my timing is on so being a newbie to engine overhauls, I dont want to mess with any more than I absolutely have to. Any and all comments and suggestions are more than welcome.....

Thanks,
OldSkool73

Not sure what that picture shows. First thing I would do is determine if that piece of metal is magnetic. If you looked in the oil pan and didn't see anything else, there is a good possibility that piece of metal fell into the well in the center of the engine when the cam cover was off. If the bike shifts normally, and you had a look at the transmission with the oil pan off, the only other bits that are steel inside the crankcases are the inner kicker assembly and crankshaft itself. There isn't anything on the crank that looks like the piece you hold that I can think of. If the piece is alumimum, I guess you would really need to pull the engine and split the cases to find where it came from... bottom line? I suppose unless I noticed some issue, I wouldn't worry about that chunck of whatever...

wiredgeorge wrote:

Not sure what that picture shows. First thing I would do is determine if that piece of metal is magnetic. If you looked in the oil pan and didn't see anything else, there is a good possibility that piece of metal fell into the well in the center of the engine when the cam cover was off. If the bike shifts normally, and you had a look at the transmission with the oil pan off, the only other bits that are steel inside the crankcases are the inner kicker assembly and crankshaft itself. There isn't anything on the crank that looks like the piece you hold that I can think of. If the piece is alumimum, I guess you would really need to pull the engine and split the cases to find where it came from... bottom line? I suppose unless I noticed some issue, I wouldn't worry about that chunck of whatever...

Wiredgeorge....
The piece of metal is really not able to be identified. Its pretty chewed up whatever it is. It is definetly magnetic as it was stuck to my magnetic oil drain plug but it also seems to have some black plastic attached to it as well. The oil pan was definetly dirty and had some metal shavings in it but there were no other chunks that were noticable. I havent had the cam cover off yet as I have just been working towards getting it running. I wasnt re-doing anything that didnt need redone. The bike was actually starting to have a few intermittent problems shifting and that was what prompted me to start snooping around. I'm not sure what direction to go now as I have it almost all the way ready to be pulled from the frame....I'm debating putting it together with fresh oil and try it again but I am also debating pulling the motor and rebuilding with fresh seals and gaskets. Since its riding season, I'm opting for putting it all back together and trying it one more time before I rebuild....

Thanks all and wish me luck!!
OldSkool73

OS73, Just a stab in the dark, and it doesn't answer the gear change problem but when you said it was steel (magnetic) and had black plastic on it...Could it be a broken off part of the cam chain tensioner?