80 KZ1300 Pilot Jet - Yellow Paint Type

Hello All,

I have a brain teaser. I have an 80 Z1300-6 ... bought it in 1981 and still tweek it now and then. The manual is excellent but left out this detail.

I removed and cleaned out the carbs; reinstalled; balanced them and the bike ran great. It had a nice idle and it would rev out with no hesitation - no pops -no backfiring. Two days later, it wouldn't start or idle. I removed the carbs and found that the pilot jets had twisted out and lost their setting. There is very little resistance to twist - apparently the o-rings are hardened. I'm hardpressed to measure the o-rings and source them.

Question: Anybody know what kind of paint is used to secure the pilot jets? It's yellow and the factory dabs it on as an indicator and (I think) to lock the pilot jet and keep it from twisting. I tried 3 different paints and non were gas resistant.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,
Tim

Geeesh, where to begin? Those things are not pilot jets... the pilot jets are located inside the float bowls. You are mucking with the pilot mixture screws. They don't need paint to retain them... they should have springs located beneath them in the pilot mixture screw well to tension them for a mechanical means of holding them. In fact, I have never seen paint on any pilot mixture screw. There are only two places where paint was used as thread lock. One is the sync nut/locknut and the other is the 5mm screw that retains the choke (enrichener) plunger arm actuator. This is the little doohicky that moves the choke plunger up and down when the choke lever is raised. The screws are what fasten the arms to the shaft.

Thanks George. Yep! I'm talking about the mixture screws. No paint? They did have plugs on top of them to prevent access and I guess tweeking. The kawasaki manual says there is paint on them. I removed the plugs 20years ago and don't recall. As I said, the mixture screws spun out after a 5 mile ride. They all have springs inside. What to do???

I suspect that if you have springs, you can stretch the springs to where they add some pressure/tension and this will resolve the issue. I have NEVER seen a mixture screw loosen if the proper spring is used and it provides tension to the screw. This is why there are springs on a carburetor mostly... to add tension to things like the idle adjust knob... this keeps the knob from vibrating loose when the bike is running.

WiredGeorge,
Thanks very much for the info. I stretched the springs as you suggested and reassembled the carbs and installed them on the bike. This z13000 has (3) 2-barrels. It started immediately and idled nicely.

I had a little bit of an issue off-idle and I'm going to post a new thread re. syncronization and vacuum.

Thanks again,

-Tim