TOPIC:

Kelly E wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why you tore down a motor that ran fine with no smoke or bad noises. We've resurrected a couple dozen bikes in the last 5 years and only had a motor issue on one. We just finished up resurrecting my 77' KZ 1000LTD with 33k miles on it. It runs great and we'll keep riding it until the motor tells us otherwise. 
We go through every system on the bike to make it safe and reliable but we won't tear down a motor just because. Most of the bikes we've done had between 20k and 30k miles on them. There's plenty of life left in these motors and it is a waste of time and money to tear down a motor for a rebuild that runs fine.

It appears he deleted this twice and I restored them. 

 I was about to comment they can fail before 20-30000 miles due to age and the acids in the crankcase. If a bike has sat for a long time it would be prudent to check the condition of the cam train assembly. 
Steve
 

Ah ok no probs that explains why i couldnt see it.
may i ask what happend to your video, (just says the account is closed)? on how to set up valves im about to do this on the bench after cylinder head work and would app some guidance.
Thanks

SWest wrote:

Kelly E wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why you tore down a motor that ran fine with no smoke or bad noises. We've resurrected a couple dozen bikes in the last 5 years and only had a motor issue on one. We just finished up resurrecting my 77' KZ 1000LTD with 33k miles on it. It runs great and we'll keep riding it until the motor tells us otherwise. 
We go through every system on the bike to make it safe and reliable but we won't tear down a motor just because. Most of the bikes we've done had between 20k and 30k miles on them. There's plenty of life left in these motors and it is a waste of time and money to tear down a motor for a rebuild that runs fine.

It appears he deleted this twice and I restored them. 

 I was about to comment they can fail before 20-30000 miles due to age and the acids in the crankcase. If a bike has sat for a long time it would be prudent to check the condition of the cam train assembly. 
Steve


Why would you restore what I chose to delete. When I read his post I missed part of it about the other damage. You had no right to restore what I deleted.
 

Gray17 wrote:

Ah ok no probs that explains why i couldnt see it.
may i ask what happend to your video, (just says the account is closed)? on how to set up valves im about to do this on the bench after cylinder head work and would app some guidance.
Thanks

They have been removing accounts for saying or posting things they don't like or asked to by special interests. The situation is fluid at this time and accounts are being reinstated or soon will be. I had over 2000 videos on there not just bike related but family and personal ones as well. Some of those platforms may just go away altogether. I am posting on Rumble now and I may transfer my old ones to it too if things don't change. 
The biggest takeaway from that video is set up the valves using one cam at a time and have the head on blocks. In the video I bent a new valve when it ran into another open one. I happened to have a spare one handy so I was able to continue. I'll be setting up another head soon with larger valves and port it as I did this one. Just a clean up and mild port job. It made a big difference. 

Steve

 

Thats bad news and must be really annoying, after spending the time to record them, hopefully theyl be reinstated, its even worst if you dont have copies and their totally lost, some things are ireplaceable.
hope you get it sorted, but ill keep an eye out for any new ones.
Cheers

Kelly E wrote:

SWest wrote:

Kelly E wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why you tore down a motor that ran fine with no smoke or bad noises. We've resurrected a couple dozen bikes in the last 5 years and only had a motor issue on one. We just finished up resurrecting my 77' KZ 1000LTD with 33k miles on it. It runs great and we'll keep riding it until the motor tells us otherwise. 
We go through every system on the bike to make it safe and reliable but we won't tear down a motor just because. Most of the bikes we've done had between 20k and 30k miles on them. There's plenty of life left in these motors and it is a waste of time and money to tear down a motor for a rebuild that runs fine.

It appears he deleted this twice and I restored them. 

 I was about to comment they can fail before 20-30000 miles due to age and the acids in the crankcase. If a bike has sat for a long time it would be prudent to check the condition of the cam train assembly. 
Steve


Why would you restore what I chose to delete. When I read his post I missed part of it about the other damage. You had no right to restore what I deleted.

I found some of your post to have some merit and others had been notified about it. I wanted to add another reason it would be wise to open a motor that had been sitting for years no matter the miles it had on the clock. I've done it myself and had to do a teardown because I didn't replace the valve guide seals after it sat for 15 years. While in there I found a broken guide and rollers that were coming apart. I replaced them with Liska rollers and saved myself from a total breakdown saving a lot more money. 
Not only that the piston lands were damaged due to the dry starts I did thinking I was saving the motor. Had I not gone in there the engine could have come apart making for one FKed up day. 

Your post contributed to the conversation that's why I saved it.
Steve

 

Gray17 wrote:

Thats bad news and must be really annoying, after spending the time to record them, hopefully theyl be reinstated, its even worst if you dont have copies and their totally lost, some things are ireplaceable.
hope you get it sorted, but ill keep an eye out for any new ones.
Cheers

They gave me the option to download all my videos (LOL). I may take them up on it and transfer them one by one to Rumble. We'll see. 

Steve
 

SWest wrote:

Kelly E wrote:

SWest wrote:

Kelly E wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why you tore down a motor that ran fine with no smoke or bad noises. We've resurrected a couple dozen bikes in the last 5 years and only had a motor issue on one. We just finished up resurrecting my 77' KZ 1000LTD with 33k miles on it. It runs great and we'll keep riding it until the motor tells us otherwise. 
We go through every system on the bike to make it safe and reliable but we won't tear down a motor just because. Most of the bikes we've done had between 20k and 30k miles on them. There's plenty of life left in these motors and it is a waste of time and money to tear down a motor for a rebuild that runs fine.

It appears he deleted this twice and I restored them. 

 I was about to comment they can fail before 20-30000 miles due to age and the acids in the crankcase. If a bike has sat for a long time it would be prudent to check the condition of the cam train assembly. 
Steve


Why would you restore what I chose to delete. When I read his post I missed part of it about the other damage. You had no right to restore what I deleted.

I found some of your post to have some merit and others had been notified about it. I wanted to add another reason it would be wise to open a motor that had been sitting for years no matter the miles it had on the clock. I've done it myself and had to do a teardown because I didn't replace the valve guide seals after it sat for 15 years. While in there I found a broken guide and rollers that were coming apart. I replaced them with Liska rollers and saved myself from a total breakdown saving a lot more money. 
Not only that the piston lands were damaged due to the dry starts I did thinking I was saving the motor. Had I not gone in there the engine could have come apart making for one FKed up day. 

Your post contributed to the conversation that's why I saved it.
Steve






That still doesn't give you the right to restore my post. If I have not done anything wrong you have no right to do it.
 

Not to take this post off the rails but I agree with KellyE. As long as no forum rules were broken I believe the poster should have control over his own content. 

Ahhh yes, "rights" are such a funny thing when one feels they have been wronged.  Somehow I missed the translation of what caused this indiscretion, so I will leave it alone.  Not worth the battle or hard feelings.  Now to another comment, NOT tearing down a motor with 20 or 30 thousand miles on it is a huge mistake in my opinion UNLESS you and ONLY you put those 20 or 30 thousand miles on the machine.  You have absolutely no idea how that vehicle was treated or taken care of.  You also have no idea if the person you purchased said vehicle from is being truthful in his milage claim.  Case in point:  I purchased my 1977 KZ1000A-1 from a guy that claimed it ONLY had 6500 miles on it and that's what the odometer showed.  In fact he made this claim several times to me and it was one of the main reasons I bought the bike.  Fast forward a few weeks later when I finally got around to pulling the air filter out of the air box and lo and behold the milage and date was hand written on the filter body.  The milage had been recorded as 19,312 on 6/26/1990.  I discovered this in July, 2019.  So in reality there was no way to tell how many actual miles were on the bike and shortly after finding the information on the air filter I figured out the speedometer had been replaced with a different one no doubt relating a much lower milage.

So, what did I learn with this experience?  Well, I don't trust anyone now regarding milage unless they can verify what they claim.  Had I not found the air filter information, or the speedometer change I would have went on believing my bike only had 6500 miles on it.  Even before I found the information on the air filter I had pre-disposed myself to taking the engine apart to repair an oil leak.  So a tear-down was inevitable, but once the head was off I realized there was more to be done that included a valve job, rings, cylinder boring and all related cam chain components.  All from a simple oil leak on a motorcycle that showed it had 6500 miles on it.  To this day I don't know how many miles are actually on this bike, but much more work was completed on it than I ever anticipated.  If I had to guess at the actual milage I would say 30,000 give or take.  Several cam chain components were well worn and the rubber parts were beyond bad.  I even had the carbs re-built twice.  The first time was done by an alleged vintage motorcycle shop in Milwaukee that totally screwed my carbs up and the second rebuild was by me and they turned out very well.

There are far too many variables to assume a motorcycle engine is in good enough shape with 20 or 30 thousand miles on it not to do a tear down and inspect it, unless you are just flipping it to make a few bucks and hoping the milage record is true.  I will never again put myself in a position of believing anyone regarding what they say about the condition of an old motorcycle or car for that matter.  People lie, documentation doesn't for the most part.  If you buy something and take it apart to check it replace what you think, or find is bad or questionable.  You will be far better off in the long run.  If you can't afford the parts you need don't rush things, buy what you can afford and wait to buy the rest when you can afford them.
Haste does indeed make waste in this area.

Rick H.

Thats a pretty similar story to mine, had seen the bike advertised on an auction site but failed to meet its reserve, the bike was then relisted a few days later, this time the price had gone up but still failed to meet its reserve. So the auction ended unsold. I promptly sent an email asking what the reserve was and agreed to buy at that reaerve. At this time id only seen photos, and spiken to the guy who was retired engineer and enjoyed restoring them, it was an ex US model and was supposed to have been partly restored and quote: ' just needing finishing'
well i paid a deposit into his bank and aranged a van to go and collect 150 miles away, i received a bill of sale, Nova certificate, photos of
machine, engine and frame numbers etc. We had several phone converstaions too and he seemed a genuine nice, helpful guy.
well went to collect it, terrible day poured down all the way there and back. But upon arrival was taken into garage there was several things that didnt look right, 1st the engine looked like it had been vapour blasted in photos had actually been painted with silver paint and was already lifting, the frame I'd been told had been fully resprayed, it had but with a brush very poor. Yes lots of stuff had been replaced, and it ran, all the gears selected and all electrics worked as did the brakes.
i decided it was well within my capabities to put it right and complete it to a decent standard and register in the UK.
Move on 3 months i have fully stripped the bike to every last nut and bolt and set about a full restoration, which so far has cost over £3500 which is far more then i expected or can really afford! Trouble is once you start you have no option but to complete otherwise its dead money.
will i get it complete yes, but its taking me a lot longer then i wanted, would i do it again probably not.
Its def lesson learnt for me.
First do more research, learn about the diff models and their differences as parts often get swopped to save money or whats available.
i wanted it on the road for Spring, but think maybe a bit ambitious as keep finding more and more, bodges and things wrong.
But i will get there!!!!

This is how I parked it for 15 years and what I started with. Stopped counting after $3500 but it's all mine. 
Steve