82 KZ1100 camshaft caps

Any idea where to find one of these? Pulled the valve cover off to replace a leaky gasket/end cap and saw this. Looks like someone attempted to repair it once already, but there is no telling how long it held before it broke again. I would rather replace it versus grind the old weld off and give it a go again. So far I've checked all over ebay and z1 with no luck.

better find another head :dry:

Care to elaborate a little bit on getting another head? Oddly enough the engine ran fairly well even with that cap busted. I never would have noticed it if it wasn't leaking oil from one of those hard rubber plugs and I pulled the valve cover to get at it.

Yeah that's not a good sign. not the end of the road either. I'm not sure if you stuck another cam cap on there if it would need to be lined bored ?? One of the engine gurus will chime in and give you some good advice.

yarrg You can fix this i have had to do it on one of my engines. Post a wanted add for the cap your missing. It does not really matter if it is the correctly numbered cap as you can mark it engrave etc for future owners bennefit. Assemble the camshaft without the cam chain. The cam should be able to rotate freely, if not you will need to make some adjustments either to the plain bearing or to the cam cap itself.

This is a common misconception.
There is NO need for another cap.
It is only the joining bridge that is broken not the actual saddle.
Just remove the broken bridge, tidy up the casting and use as two separate caps.( you don't really need to do anything and could just put it back as is )
Make sure you mark them for future reference so they don't get mixed up.
Ideally you would install another dowel on each side but they self align anyhow when tightened and will work just as well as before.

zed1015 wrote: This is a common misconception.
There is NO need for another cap.
It is only the joining bridge that is broken not the actual saddle.
Just remove the broken bridge, tidy up the casting and use as two separate caps.( you don't really need to do anything and could just put it back as is )
Make sure you mark them for future reference so they don't get mixed up.
Ideally you would install another dowel on each side but they self align anyhow when tightened and will work just as well as before.

i will 2nd that good advise

zed, hit it right on the head. If you was to buy another cam cap you will need to buy some plasta gauge to check the clearance. The cam caps are made as one piece with the head. They are line bored. Then after that the cam caps are cut off. Thats why the cam caps shouldnt be replaced with others. But you could find one that would work. But for the effort i would just clean yours up and reuse them.

The caps are made separate to the head but then bolted on and lined bored with it.
The only reason to replace any would be if it broke across the saddle (not that common actually) or if they got misplaced/lost or damaged in some other critical way and you really need a box full of spare caps to find one close enough to "adjust".
Not just any cap can be made to fit, it all depends on the axis and severity of the misalignment.

I really wish people would realise that a broken bridge is not that serious and despair at the amount of heads that might have been scrapped or broken up needlessly.

Zed, I was wondering if that would work last night as I was staring at the broken cap for hours on end. I'll give it a go. Thanks for the advice.

zed1015 wrote: This is a common misconception.
There is NO need for another cap.
It is only the joining bridge that is broken not the actual saddle.
Just remove the broken bridge, tidy up the casting and use as two separate caps.( you don't really need to do anything and could just put it back as is )
Make sure you mark them for future reference so they don't get mixed up.
Ideally you would install another dowel on each side but they self align anyhow when tightened and will work just as well as before.

What Zed said. I have done it that way several times, the bridge is not structural. I would cut the remaining bridge off, clean it up and use the caps. Just mark them for the correct position. The KZ650 cam caps are used that way, no bridge.

Worked like a charm. Thanks for the help guys.