TOPIC:

Figured I'd give an update for those interested or who offered advice:

I have been talking with Larry Cavanaugh and I think what I am going to do is send him my engine and ebay head with all relevant parts for a complete dismantling and rebuild including mild head work & refurbishing. There is a good chance I will be able to stay at 1015cc which will help with the cost a bit.

I spent some time over Memorial day organizing the garage and making it easier to work in which I'm sure as many of you know is half the battle of actually making any progress...gaining space over kid toys, etc.

Will be pulling the rest of the engine out soon and crating up for shipment by the end of June is the current plan.

Getting in late; this is interesting. Why not buy a good engine and freshen it up? Valves, hone w/rings and back cut gears and new sh ift forks, etc?

Did you get a block also? The damage there was just as bad as the head, no?

WG,
That is kind of the plan with the difference being my bottom end is good and a known quantity, and also the engine # matches my CA reg. (pain to change it). Plan is for Larry to go through the bottom end while he is in there and possibly back cut trans, check crank, etc.

VTEC, yes the block was damaged worse IMO...LC has one at his shop.

Suggest paying the extra for OEM gaskets.

Might be a bit late but there is a person in Queensland Australia who has lots of Z parts, Scotty Lynch, really nice person, he welded my crank for a reasonable price and sold some bits to some Z owners I know (PM if interested).

jenkrider wrote: WG,
That is kind of the plan with the difference being my bottom end is good and a known quantity, and also the engine # matches my CA reg. (pain to change it). Plan is for Larry to go through the bottom end while he is in there and possibly back cut trans, check crank, etc.

VTEC, yes the block was damaged worse IMO...LC has one at his shop.

Wow... didn't know any state kept track of engine numbers. I would still buy just a block & head but if you have the money to have a pro do the work, nothing wrong with any of the folks you have mentioned. There are getting to be less and less places where professionals will rebuild a vintage bike engine.

For those of you who were interested in this thread, I am happy to report that after a 6 month delay due to 1) a new baby and 2) having to install HVAC at my house this summer, I have the rest of the engine out and ready to crate and send to LC. He will split the cases, check everything, and provide me a new block as well as massage the kz1000 head I got on ebay. Will keep posted with updates.

Congratulations on the New Baby
Now get that KZ Done !!
Glad to hear from you
Dave

Bye bye engine, see ya in awhile!

Well, now that the unfortunate news is public, I thought it was a good time to update this thread.

If you remember, in January of this year I sent my engine and a kz1000 ebay head off to Larry C. He was looking forward to working on my engine in his new shop he had just build. Sadly, this was not to be - In May, I spoke with him and he told me about his health problems which are now posted publicly so no need to rehash here. He (and I) were optimistic that he may have some options for treatment, and I didn't mind waiting - there was a chance that this would have been the last engine he did. Sadly, he took a turn for the worse and passed away recently. Larry was always very kind to me in conversation and as it's been said on here many times we lost a really important member of the KZ world with his death. Definitely not how I was expecting this to all pan out! I promised his brother that I would do a big smokey burnout in his memory once I got this thing all sorted out and back together.

So, I was able to get my engine back, still crated, by tracking down Larry's brother. So that is at least a positive, the engine was not yet disassembled. The negative, of course, is that I am back at square one right where I started 10 months ago. My tentative plan (haven't touched engine since receiving it back yet) is to have APE do my Ebay head, track down a block and have it bored for either my pistons or possibly a new set - install a master-link cam chain and NOT split the cases, and re-assemble the top end myself, which I am confident in doing (this time remembering to re-torque the head bolts, which was the whole cause of this nonsense to begin with)

The impetus behind sending the whole engine to Larry was a bottom to top rebuild since he is the expert - I see no reason to split the cases myself since while I am a pretty good wrench, I am not an expert and I don't have the time to devote to a full rebuild. The bottom end doesn't leak and I am not going to be drag racing this bike so I intend to keep it that way. Other than a new cam chain everything else down there was (is) in working order.

Sound like a plan?

And once again, RIP Larry Cavanaugh.

We read the entire thread for a refresher.

Only suggestion we'd offer is that unless we were completely confident of the history regarding the bottom end, we'd at least pull the pan & check the condition of the 2nd. gear dogs. If you're confident that those are sound, proceeding with the project as-is would likely be a safe bet.

Stud stretch re: head nut threaded depth is documented in a service bulletin on early Z1's. That's why Mama Kaw modified the original square-shouldered top hat nuts early in production, adding 2.5mm in threaded depth to the later square-shoulder nuts. The modified square-shoulder nuts are also 2.5mm ~ 3.0mm taller externally, and a side-by-side comparison makes it obvious. If you're using the newer nuts circa Z1-B & onward with the tapered shoulder, they incorporate the added thread depth. Unless HD studs are installed, it might be a good idea to check the exposed height of the OEM studs with the jugs, head & copper washers in place to get an idea of how much wiggle room is there considering the threaded depth of the nuts. If you still have used head gaskets that are already crushed, a more accurate estimate of stud height vs nut depth can be calculated using those.

Good ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE