sand in the crankcase GPZ 550

Sorry for the hijack - thanks! I think it also helps keep the cable from melting against the exhaust...

Cable clip to downtube keeps cable from touching header.

www.z1enterprises.com/detail.aspx?ID=3213





Oem on large Kaw fours.

Good Fortune!

Stock Kawasaki cables always had the springs. Unfortunately Kawasaki chose to quit making all the cables, so we are stuck with Motion Pro cables. I did some comparisons between the two about 4 yrs ago and the Motion Pro is not all that crappy. Crappy, but less crappy than I would have imagined after using some of their other crap. :sick: If I worked for that company I'd not sleep well at night thinking about the distribution of the Chinese "goods". Can't call most of it goods though, Chinese rockgut shit is what most of their stuff is and no nicer words for it.

steell wrote: Worst case, the sand you missed will score the oil pump. It's kind of hard for it to get to the bearings because it goes through the oil filter first.

Dump about a gallon of kerosene/diesel into the motor, all at once if possible, so it will splash around and hit everything, followed by about a gallon of used oil from your last oil change. After removing the sump of course. Then continue with your plans.

Good thing Kawasaki designed an oil filter into their motors, eh

steell, sorry to say, but that's wishfull thinking... and the reason i say it is that i saw enough motors with scored main bearings shells (as well as scored pumps), yes, modern oil filter and all. Why? because regretfully, the oil pressure relief valve bypasses the oil filter in most engines i know in cold starts, so debris can find their way to plain bearings, guess you know that.

dfinnegan71, so its totally ok that you ignore my advice and prefer to follow the one that fits your plan better, its a common behavior in many forums i am active in: people will listen only to what they want to hear.... dont bother me with the facts... Honestly, I wouldnt sleep well if i told you that dumping kerosen and oil will surely clean every nook of the engine and prevent a scored pump rotor (that's bad enough) or worse. But that's just me, I'm sure steell means well too, just dont say latter nobody told ya'

Maybe the reason people don't listen to you is because you get so many things wrong?
Or maybe it's the outlandish claims?

Exacly "how" have you seen the oil pressure relief valve open? X-ray vision?
Since the oil pressure relief valve does not feed the motor by bypassing the filter, what does it have to do with anything? The oil pressure relief valve dumps excess pressure back to the pan, generally at 65-85 psi.

The manual does not list the pressure required to open the oil filter bypass valve, it just says it opens to bypass a dirty clogged filter. If the air temp is below 30 degrees F, and the motor has 20w50 oil in it, then I'll concede the bypass valve "may" open. But who starts fresh rebuilt motors under that condition?

You make to many assumptions. How do you know that a scored bearing was caused by oil bypassing the filter? Perhaps it was caused by a piece of flashing breaking loose inside an oil passage? Or maybe the filter was installed with a piece of dirt on it? For that matter look at the size of the mesh on the oil pickup, not much is going to get past that.

By the way, the bypass valve only bypasses all the oil when the filter is totally plugged. The ret of the time the bypass valve bypasses the pressure above it's set limit, the rest goes through the filter. And I still take exception to your statement that all, or most, engines bypass the filter on cold start. And I'd like to know how you can possibly know that?

Finally, using your logic, any motor that has had a cover removed, must be torn down and reassembled in a clean room, because you can never be absolutely certain that no dust or dirt has gotten inside.

Methinks you worry to much.

Well fellas, I took all your advice and the sump came off, I flushed once with a half gallon of deisel, than a flush with the remaining oil from when I emptied it to start this job, than the last flush with half gallon of kerosene. Between the three method combo, I feel pretty confident that this issue is solved. Now, I just hope when I get it all back together it dosn't leak any worse than it did before.

gee man, hope i am not offending or something and that it doesnt get out of control.... you are surely a person i do respect here. And i dont exactly know what you mean by outlandish claims...

strange because you agree that the oil filter valve MAY open, so where are on the same page. whether thats enough of a worry is a personal thing, I just wanted to warn the guy that a kerosene wash doesnt equal no risk. just my opinion.

and no, i dont split my motors every time i open a case, i just put a nylon bag over openings. problem is that neither you or i have seen how much dirt actually fell inside. last time it happened to me, i had the luck that i was splitting cases anyway for a rebuild.

last, in motors where i found shell damage, the pump was always scored too, i.e. it was stuff picked up from the sump, not flash in the oil ways. sure know about the mesh and still it can happen.

But seriously, the only reason i post here is not to be listened to but to give back to a forum that helped me in the past. If i been building high strung road race motors for 5 years now without a single mechanical DNF, looks like i am not getting too many things wrong, right?

Peace and grease

PS - do a little test at your next oil filter change. grab the filter bolt and take a look at the the spring loaded relief. you'll be amazed at how light the pressure is and how easily the bal can move.

Would the Deisel flush with the sump still intact be bad? Would diesel damage anything in the sump area? I ask because I dumped the 1/2 gallon of desiel in and realized, oops I gotta take the sump off. Than the old oil than the kerosene with the sump off. I hope I didn't go makeing a bigger problem due to my lack of experience......this could be turning into an expensive little project.

well, the idea was you'd take the complete sump cover off and let the fluid flow down freely.

at this point I would do the flushing again AFTER taking the sump off (i.e. not just the oil filter cover)

kerosen migh jusy make rubber seals swell a bit, not a major disaster if you drain it quick.

just dont use the same fluid (with sand in it... ) to flush again!

This aint rocket science guys,if youre really concerned about it change the oil a couple of times.
Ive seen motors submerged in water that got a couple oil changes and ran just fine afterwards

Well said wireman! That is my plan, run it change it repeat.