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No oil to top end, help please
- 29palms
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- 1981 KZ650 CSR
I'll start off with what I did to it to narrow down on the troubleshooting.
-Bike is a 1981 kz650 csr
Motor was running in fall, 30,000 miles. I took it out to do valve shims and clean it up a bit. Painted the block and I had the head vapor blasted.
I made sure to power wash the head to remove all trace of left over particulate.
Lapped the valves, and washed the head again. installed new valve shims, and a stainless bolt kit and athena gasket kit, I did not split the cases just had from the base gasket up apart. I was having trouble with my cam chain tensioner sticking open so I installed a manual one from APE as well.
I made sure to put engine assembly lube on the cams and were else it was needed.
The Start-up. When I started the bike up and got it running I had a squeaking noise, realized I had the wrong valve cover gasket and that blowby air was coming from my engine and escaping ( I have block off plates to get rid of the vacume hoses). Put in a new valve cover gasket, no more blowby air but still the squeak.
Pull the valve cover off and turn the motor over with the starter. Squeak is coming from my cam on the bucket. I put some oil on it and the noise goes away.
Now this is where I feel stupid. I should have noticed that my top end should have been getting oil to stop that noise. I then start up the bike and run it till it is warm and then some, bike isn't running right and sounds noisy by I'm still diagnosing other problems like the cam chain tensioner...
Pull the valve cover off and I realized my top end looked really dry, turn the motor over with the starter and I realize I should be getting more oil than that. take a closer look and see that oil is only coming up from the cam chain, and what little pools of oil there are are filled with aluminum dust. :pinch:
my cam looks fine, journals might be out of spec now, will have to measure.
I have the head and cylinders off now but didn't see any clogs in any of the passages, or any gasket that would be in the way. My filter is installed correctly, and I'm all out of ideas. If I recall my engine oil light was coming on at first, but went off after the rpms got up.
Could my pump have gone bad while the motor sat for a few months without oil?
Can I drill out the oil passage thing in picture 2 to increase flow?
1981 KZ650 Cafe project
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- 29palms
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I'm not sure if I installed the o-rings in the first picture. I will pull the pan tomorrow and check.
1981 KZ650 Cafe project
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- 650ed
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I would check the oil pump screen to see that it is clean, especially since you found aluminum debris in the engine. Ed
1977 KZ650-C1 Original Owner - Stock (with additional invisible FIAMM horn)
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- bountyhunter
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AMEN Their function is to be a restrictor in line with the oil flow to keep the oil pressure up at lower points along the path of flow and meter how much oil goes up to the top. Opening up the holes will cause the system pressure to be lower and that is very bad news.650ed wrote: I definitely would NOT drill out those nozzles. Make sure they are clean, and if they are damaged replace them.
1979 KZ-750 Twin
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- bluezbike
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79 KZ 1000 LTD
77 KZ 1000 B1 LTD (awaiting electrical resurrection)
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- PLUMMEN
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The smaller motors like that one dont have cam bearings, just a little oil between cams and head surface.
Yet another advantage to those expensive bearing inserts on the bigger 900-1000-1100 motors.
Still recovering,some days are better than others.
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- 29palms
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pulled the pan on the motor today, the two small o-rings were installed but the big obvious one that I'm holding in the picture was not.
I will be looking at the head and inspecting all the damage from the lack of oil pressure tomorrow. Hopefully I can run it, and look into getting a low mileage 750 motor to swap in over the winter.
1981 KZ650 Cafe project
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- bluezbike
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79 KZ 1000 LTD
77 KZ 1000 B1 LTD (awaiting electrical resurrection)
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- 29palms
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1981 KZ650 Cafe project
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- bluezbike
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79 KZ 1000 LTD
77 KZ 1000 B1 LTD (awaiting electrical resurrection)
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- RonKZ650
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I'm sure that's the way the oil system works. Every oring on my kz650s has hardened like plastic, and only problem ever encountered was oil leaks. I've had all these pan to case orings go bad and got oil drips on the floor, but oil to topend was fine. I've never heard of a 650 not getting oil to the top end until now.bluezbike wrote: Haven't opened up a 650 yet but I believe it is the same principle as in a 1000 and in that bike the pump is a mechanical device which is submerged in the oil, picks up that oil (through a mesh filter) and pumps it up through the motor via two rotating gears run off the crankshaft. This system does not rely on any pressurization/vacuum to operate. One test you can do is install the big O-ring you missed, make sure there's the right amount of oil in your bike, put it on the center stand, take off the valve cover and spin the motor and see if any oil comes through........might get a bit messy but at least you will know the oil path is clear......please correct me if I am wrong any 650 owners!!
321,000 miles on KZ's that I can remember. Not going to see any more.
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- 29palms
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I will update as soon as I can get to the next step.
1981 KZ650 Cafe project
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