750 Spectre rebuild

I am in the middle of restoring a 1983 750 Spectre. I have it completely torn down and will be sending the engine housings out for dry ice blasting. I am having a hard time finding certain parts to rebuild the engine, mostly rod and crank bearings at this time. I have searched almost every where and also posted on another site looking for help on finding sources for these parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A quick check of the OEM Kawasaki parts fishe shows the bearings are still available. Order from your local dealership or choose from a multitude of online places that sell Kawasaki parts such as Partzilla.

There is nothing wrong with reusing your old bearing shells too. That's what I did on my 750. Only had to replace 2-3 shells out of 8.

Once you find the part number of the shell you needed (they come in two color codes,) then you may want to check ebay for the best price.

Needless to say you will need gaskets, and OEM Kawasaki gaskets are vastly superior to aftermarket. Well worth the extra money.

Thanks for your help Nessism, but I struck out at two dealers.

I called two Kawasaki dealers and both of them said they were not able to get the rod or crank bearings for me. Now I am getting concerned that I have this torn down and will not be able to rebuild it. Because after this one, I have another 750 Spectre I want to restore also. I have a hard time believing that there would be no way to obtain these. Although the Spectre was limited in years, I believe that 750 4 cylinder was in a lot of bikes.

Looking for anymore help, suggestions, clues, tips or anything on where I might be able to find these bearings. There is wear on the current ones and I cannot reuse them.

Like Nessium said ...... Did you try Partzilla a few numbers I punched in show they are in stock. Maybe Cheap cycle parts too. Ebay have not tried but I had a lotta luck for my stuff. I agree 100% on the oem Kawasaki gaskets too......

I was just looking through the Partzilla site. They show the crank bearings as being available but shows the rod bearing as not available. I am going to at least get the crank bearings through them, but I have to figure out which ones are the correct ones, It shows a black and a brown.

Once again thanks for any or all help. Any more is appreciated.

Do you have a factory manual.... in it it should explain the diff in size of the two bearings.... I'll let someone else explain better but I think you need to measure up what you have with plastigage (easiest) or with inside and outside mics and determine if you need what you have now or the smaller one than you have now to get the clearance in spec. I see some rod bearings on Ebay but they are for one here 4 there etc..... I checked with about 8 or 9 outlets before I found the starter clutch sprocket I needed so google and check many.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationThe color code is on the old bearing. Hopefully you kept track of which bearing went in which location on the engine. I use an awl to scratch the position number on the back of the bearing when I remove them. Look at the old bearing and decide what color, then order the same.

You can get the part number from Partzilla (or similar) and then check out ebay. I did a spot check and there were all kinds of crank and rod bearing shells available. Hopefully you can find the right color codes...

Nesssism,

I do have the manual and it shows how to identify the correct bearings for the motor. I must have read it wrong, because I thought it stated to look on the crank for a letter. I have not removed the bearings from the housing yet and I kept the rod bearings with the rods that they were on. I will pull one of the crank bearings and look at the back to see. I do pin mark these as I take them out, something my Dad had taught me, he was a master mechanic, I learned a lot form him. Thanks again and I will let you know what I find after searching. I think I need to start searching for the actual part number instead of searching for the bike or motor parts.

The color code is a mark on the edge of the bearing. And there is no value in replacing the bearings unless the shell is damaged. They are not like a roller bearing that moves.

I think I might have found a site that has them and some sites I looked at show part number has changed to PN. Site is below. Looks like they still have quite a few items in stock for this bike, more than I have found at other sites. They are oversees, but if they have the parts I need I am happy.

www.cmsnl.com/kawasaki-kz750n2-spectre-1...list/?model_q=kz750n

Quick shopping list if necessary



Take some pics of your rod / crankshaft bushings and crankshaft surfaces to check if all parts are needed.

Michael

Ok finally some nice weather here in Michigan and got back to working on this today, I thought I ha this worked out until I looked at the bearings to get the correct part number needed. See attached photos of the numbers I found on the bearings. Nothing seems to match up with the part diagram. There is wear signs on all of the bearings so I do have to replace all of them. Any suggestions appreciated.

Mike