Valve job...rings

For a KZ1000, how many miles can you go before it would be adviseable or recommended to pull head off and recondition? How about rings....recommended miles til the motor might need rings? My motor has about 28,000 miles. Been a couple years since it's run and the motor is now out of frame. Last time it ran, it smoked on start up. Not real bad but you could definitely see smoke. Took it for ride and when I remembered to check it again, it wasn't smoking. Bad guide seals will usually cause smoke on start up but doesn't last long and bad rings would cause smoke all the time, if I remember right but would rings cause smoke and then tighten up enough after warm up to cause smoking to stop? Correct me if I'm wrong on anything....

Smoking on start up is most likely guide seals.
Worn rings/bores will smoke all the time and won't "tighten up" when warm.
28k miles on the motor should still leave plenty of use in it before major overhaul but it all depends on how it has been treated.
40k is around where the cam chain is recommended to be replaced but they can last much longer.
While it's out you are only 10k or so away from what could be time for the overhaul so maybe now's the time to do the work and get your self another 40k .
At the least i would check for guide wear ,fit new seals and refresh the valves but i tend to go the whole hog and do a ground up rebuild with fresh pistons and cam train etc if it's a machine i intend to keep it or it's part of a bigger build.

racer54 wrote: For a KZ1000, how many miles can you go before it would be adviseable or recommended to pull head off and recondition? How about rings....recommended miles til the motor might need rings? My motor has about 28,000 miles....

Your motor is still in its infancy. My 1977 KZ650-C1 has more than 62,000 miles on it and has never had the head pulled or any other non-routine maintenance done to it. Ed

"but it all depends on how it's been treated", pretty much says it all, I don't think there is a mileage number for every machine. You can still perform a compression or leakdown test to determine the condition of your motor even though it's out of the frame.

Mike

I have to agree with Mike on his comments. I have seen motors of all sorts with very low mileage and the were trash and needed an overhaul. In 650eds case he obviously took great care of his bike and doing so has resulted in increased longevity. It's my "opinion" that if the head needs work so does the pistons/rings. Once you get the head off there is no sense stopping there and you might as well refresh the cylinders and pistons and rings. This is what I did on mine and now I wish I had gone further into it and refreshed the bottom end too. But now I will have something to do this winter so there's always a bright side.

Rick H.

Thanks for the replies guys. Thinking the seals are bad so I'm going to pull the head, have it redone and not worry about it later. Thinking of putting in a 1075 kit for a little more oomph. I'll remove the pan and check out the transmission condition also.