Top end time

Greybeard wrote: The odometer has 28,000 and change.
Once my valve spring compressor arrives I'll pull the valves and have the head media blasted.
I'll ask a friend to run the valves through his ultrasonic cleaner and see if that doesn't get all the rest of the carbon clear.
Guess I'll be pulling the block and have it media blasted too...

28,000 miles on motor.

Almost guarantee you the exhaust guides are toast!!!!

I would be real careful if you plan on sand or glass beading your whole cylinder head. In the past I would tape off the whole head gasket surface and the same with the top area of head. Could not believe how much glass bead ended up in the bucket cavities, cam cap threads, and into the oil passages!!!!! Ran Safety Kleen through the head for hours and STILL had that grit in the cam cap threads. It took hours and many cans of carb cleaner and compressed air to get everything free of that damn grit!!!

I get the message. Soda blasting. Protect mating surfaces.
I'll check for play in the exhaust guides.
Keep the good advice coming.

Good call on the base gasket Steve. It was leaking too. I'm looking at a cheap soda blaster. Those APE studs aren't cheap. I've got the old ones loose.
Guess I'll take the pistons off one at a time and clean them up while I've got it torn down this far.
Should I replace the rings too?
Actual odometer reading is 29272.9.
Any other thoughts or suggestions at this point?

APE studs work great for extra clamping down of the head and block , but in the
long run you should consider the matching APE HD head nuts too.
After a couple of rebuilds my stock Kaw nuts started to strip out so I switched to the APE nuts
Dave

If they made them with a chrome finish. Black caps on a brushed aluminum head would not be to my liking. I did buy new caps.

Valve lip looks beat. Is it worth trying to lap it? Seat looks ok I think.

What do the bores look like? New rings and a light hone might do it. Try lapping the valves and see how wide the seats are. Check the rock in the guides. If the seats are too wide and the rock too much a valve job is in order. I got away with 50,000 miles until I had to redo the valves and guides. That's why I put all that work in the junk head. It was well worth it.
Steve

The valve need a 45 degree angle re-surface cut or grinding.

Totally agree (see Dr Gamma's comment above), I had my Z1R head blasted and every thread was rooted eventually, the cams were scratched from beads stuck in cavities. No matter how I cleaned the oil galleries they still had beads. I ended up getting another head.
When I did the GPZ head (not long ago) I taped every orifice including the oil hole where the head rods go through the barrel/head.

Valve centerless grinding is the way to go. The guy in this video did my 750 valves and it literally took him the same amount of time as shown in the video. And because it was fast it was also cheap.

Almost guarantee you the exhaust guides are toast!!!!

Right again. Very slight but there is play.

How hard are the guides to change out?
I read the manual. Heat the port, use the guide driver to push it out.
Just looking for insight from some whove done it before.

The head has to be heated and the guides driven out. There's a chance metal will come out with it then a oversized guide will be needed. Best done by a pro. How much rock?
Steve