A Newbies Adventures in Maintenanceland!

i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll231/9am53/project023.jpg

I posted this pic before, but I have a question about it...I would edit it in paint to make it easier to see what I am talking about, but I think it should be easy enough to see.


look at the exhaust side (right side) and then look directly to the left of the shims, there are holes that run into the head. These are not bolt holes or anything, are they oil pathways? These are only on the exhaust side right behind where the cam lobe runs on the lifter which would seem to be a good position for oiling, BUT although I don't have a pic of it my valve cover has these holes covered up. What do these holes do? why are they not on the intake side of the head?

are you talking about the hole for tach drive?

Those are emission ports I believe. Did the bike come with a valve on top of the engine? This valve would have exhaust gasses run back into the air cleaner on decel, to recirculate the unburnt gasses. You can plug off the fittings on the valve covers, but leave the reeds inside.
Removing that valve frees up more space between the engine and the frame. Cap off the extra vacuum ports on the engine side of the carbs, and run one to the vacuum petcock.

Aside from that, the inside doesn't look all that bad. The oil is not clean, but there is not a lot of discoloration, and that's a good thing. Oil has been changed often, from the light color of the aluminum.

NO ORANGE SILICONE ON GASKETS!!! It looks so trashy.

OH, geez i feel dumb! This is a canadian bike, so I don't have any of that emmisions crap...we have trees to clean the air! I was worried that they were oil passages and that my valve cover had a manufacturing error in it! I wonder if kawasaki would replace it if it was a mistake!!!lol

Those holes are from an emission head, I'm certain, but someone that knows the 1000 line could set me straight.

Do you have a manual for this bike?

Looking through your album here:
s289.photobucket.com/albums/ll231/9am53/

I see that you don't have anything like I mentioned above, but it looks like that head was used on both CA and Non-CA Emission Heads? Canadian Model, eh?

If you want me to remove the photobucket link, I will edit it out, but it's good to have that link in your signature. We like pictures. :woohoo:

i never thought of adding that to my sig...I usually use photobucket to post pics on forums...yeah my valve cover has no reeds or hoses or anything, just a clean top...I will get a pic posted tonight (I can sneak away for an hour tonight)thx..

So I managed to sneak off for a bit last night and removed all the pistons, stuffed the holes with t-shirts, soaked and worked on removing the base gasket and tried to remove the carbon from my pistons. I put one piston top down in a sonicator with carb cleaner, and it did absolutely nothing. I am thinking that cleaning these will be harder than I thought! I am going to try a stronger solvent (DCM from my lab) tonight. If this doesn't work then I don't know...I am afraid of using a wire wheel because I don;t want to scratch the tops and ring grooves...scotch brite pads would work about as well as maxi pads because this stuff is hard as a rock...

you can wire wheel the tops just be carefull you won't hurt the tops just be very carefull around the ring lands also you can wire wheel the valves as well i noticed you want to put them in the ultrasonic cleaner don't your wasting your time and contaminating the cleaner that carbon is baked on from how many years of use it wont even touch it.

Anyone used oven cleaner to remove the baked oil from the ring grooves? Just asking, as I haven't. I would think it would discolor the aluminum, but would it be OK with it?

I second the wire wheeling of the valves, combustion chamber, and piston tops. Just go easy.

As for the base gasket material stuck to the cylinders, and case, it's going to take some time, but I used a razor knife, and worked at it slowly. Make sure to remove all of it.

cool, I talked to my tech today and he said the same thing about the wire brushing...just take it easy. I will save the sonicator for my carb bits once the motor is back together. I found PB Blaster worked quite well last night on the gasket material and the caked on oil in the fins. I am going to work on cleaning it some more tomight, and will try out the wire wheel/brush method...