Purchased a non-running 77' Kz1000A

Ed, What stumps me is what were those 2 larger metal pieces from. This bike has seen better days and who know what kind of abuse it had prior. Did I ask what the valve clearances are supposed to be?

Ordinarily I would agree with the advice about checking valves first and running it for a while then see what you have.....BUT with metal shavings that big in the oil and you say bike has has seen better days I would opt for the rebuild. I think it's too much to ask a bike sounding like yours does to perform out of the box......just my .02

Since the shavings are steel, they are definitely important.

The list of steel parts in the oil bath is relatively short:
- Bearings and bearing surfaces
- Crank
- Transmission parts
- Clutch parts
- Alternator parts.
- Valves.

Almost everything else is aluminum, brass, or plastic (and hence wouldn't stick to a magnet).

If the steel is relatively soft, it could have come from the clutch, but the rest of those pieces don't react well to pieces being shaved off. It sounds to me like it's time for a full tear down and inspection.

Jacked bike up today to get rear off the ground and see if I could put bike in the upper gears manual with gear lever. Would go into 1st. gear then back to neutral, no problem. But when trying to pull lever up into higher gear, nothing happens even turning the rear wheel? There is no clutch lever mounted on the handlebars, just the clutch cable routed to it from the motor. Shouldn't the bike be able to go in the upper gears? Maybe it's time to reconsider just selling what I have and buying a runner instead !!!

It won't going into high gears without moving, it's a safety mechanism

Does anyone know of a "GOOD ENGINE BUILDER" out here in California???

If you don't know who the motorcycle engine guru's are in your area, check with the local Kawi shop and see who they use, and start from there.

Is the bike pristine ? Do you love the bike ? Because you're talking serious coin to fix it from what you're describing.

Good luck with your big Kawi !

Keep in mind that most "about that era" KZ1000 engines will drop into that frame, so finding a J-Model engine from an old CHP bike should be fairly simple. They built the J-Model engine from the 1000P for something like 19 years.

Another option is to just pull it and rebuild it. There are a few things you won't be able to do by yourself (micing the cylinders, etc.) but you may find that the "damage" inside the engine is limited to one or two parts. Of course, if you get in and the engine is completely horked, you have to take it apart to sell it for scrap anyway,

I'm with Cynjut on this one. There are a ton of 1000P police bikes. If you are comfortable doing a basic rebuild, call the motorcycle salvage yards and get an entire engine. A rebuilt one is going to run $600-1000. Depending on the build.

kzdcw wrote: Drained the oil today. Oil drain plug full of metal shavings at the magnetic end. Couple of the shavings were approx. 1/2" in length and about a 1/4" in width? One was folded in the middle with one end slightly curved. There were approx. .004" thick. What do you think they were?

At this point you have nothing to lose. You have not put any extra money into it. So why not drop the oil pan and look to see what you find there. It may give you more clues on where the metal shavings came from, it may be something simple like the front cam chain guide. With mine, the whole guide got chopped off and spit out the oil drain when doing an oil change. If the chain was very loose last it was running, it could have caused this and other damage. But nothing fatal. Got nothing to lose but some time by looking. The KZP engine option will still be out there and you can still multitask and search for one.

Like KZJoe said you have nothing to lose by tearing the motor apart. I bought a crummy 1000 motor for $25 a year ago just to have a look inside as I had never done any work on a motor before. I wanted to see if there would be any crazy stuff I would not be able to deal with and found it one of the simplest things to take apart and put back together again.....fear not and dig into it!!!

Haven't yet made up mind to either keep and rebuild it or just sell it as is? If I was to look into an option of using the KZP engines, is there a location you may know of to call?