TOPIC:

Hey everyone, I'm working on a full rebuild for what was an 83' KZ750 F1 that threw a rod. I've picked up an 82' KZ750E engine that will act as the majority of my replacement engine. I was hoping to just do a top end/cylinder rebuild and not have to go into the crankcase but I found a couple pieces broken off the case where the shift level attaches and will need to transfer all the internals to a new case which I've acquired from an 82' KZ50N Spectre. My main question is what parts are considered consumable in the crankcase/what parts I need to check and consider replacing? Obviously I'll be replacing all gaskets and seals, but what about bearings, collars, and the like? My point of failure in my previous engine appears to be the rod bearing so I'm a little paranoid about those. I do have a Clymer manual but would really like to get some input from anyone that has gone inside one of these engines before as I've done a reasonable amount of work with engines but have avoided going into a crankcase until now.

Hello and welcome to the Forum Mac55.

First at all, throw it away your Clymer and get a real Kawasaki manual.

www.750turbo.com/manuals/GPz750_Base%20Manual.pdf

Crankcases aren't really that scary. They're actually a lot simpler than the top-end stuff (at least the parts are larger anyway). Especially on a KZ750-4, where IIRC there is no balancer mechanism like on the twins.

When I was rebuilding my 440, the worst part was taking off the exhaust valves with a valve spring compressor. The exhaust valves sit at a larger angle off of vertical compared to the intake valves, which made compressing the springs to remove the keepers a real challenge with the compressor I had. By comparison the bottom end was easy, because with that you only have to deal with setting the correct torque for all of the bolts.