85 GPz750 Refresh Project

Soooooo an hour and a half later its starting to get late enough that I need to pack back up, clean up and head back to the old apartment and head to bed. Here is what I was able to get done before calling it a night:

Got pretty far into it and was overall pleased with my progress. Next steps are to strip the other coil off the other side, pull the carbs and pull the header/exhaust to get full access to the front and rear of the jugs and then wrap up stripping those as well as wrap up stripping the head and rocker cover for the other side too. While I was at it started working on the header flanges too as they were pretty rough and when I strip the header off I will also clean that bad boy up and spray it with the BBQ paint at the same time that I spray the jugs and head and rocker cover. Decided for cost reasons to go with flat black BBQ paint and because the rest of the parts were/are already flat black. The lower cases are still pretty shiny and clean with the gloss black and think that the contrast will work well. So that is where I am at, still need a few more hours of stripping and rubbing then cleaning the crap out of everything and then I can spray it and put it back together and then go for a ride to cure everything :evil:

Brett

Well after doing all the initial yard work and cleaning of the new house I ended up getting about another hour of wire wheel work in the other side of the engine today. Long, dirty tedious work for sure but the end result will be worth it me thinks.

Next step is to remove the carbs and header and wire wheel the front and rear of the jugs and fins, then I decided to also attack the header and strip that down a ways to paint it at the same time as the engine. Once everything is stripped and good to go then I will blast t off with a pressure washer, soak it in Simple Green and attack it with a toothbrush again, then blast it off one more time. Then dry everything, slap on some degreaser and then shoot everything. Reassemble and take her for a 30 min run to cure it and then take some sandpaper and rub off the paint for the edges of the fins and raised sections of the rocker cover... Man I bit off a big chunk of work this time :whistle:

Brett

Soooooo KZR I had a bit of an epiphany last night about how much of a dumba$$ I was without even thinking about it. :pinch: :S


So I have the bike totally stripped apart right? More stripped down than any time before, body panels, underbelly, coils, etc etc, would take a while to put everything back together right??? Well tomorrow we do the big move to the new house, and on Sunday I head back to work.... WAIT A MINUTE! My office is still at the old place for another week or two and we only have one car and my motorcycle! SH!T!!!!!!

So yeah, I have to use Saya to commute to and from work for the next week or two and forgetting that like a simpleton I have the bike blown apart and the engine half stripped of paint! CRAP!!! Poor Saya is stripped down exposing her naked jugs right now :silly: :silly: (hehehe yeah I'm a dork I know) but I have to be able to ride to Longmont with her Sunday morning at 8am, yup I reallllllllly am an idiot :whistle:

So new plan.... this evening I have to go up, spray off the bike, soak the engine in Simple Green and attack it with a toothbrush, then degrease it, then shoot the BBQ paint tonight on the part that are bare and currently exposed, No, it will not be the complete job that I thought it would be nor will I be doing the exhaust etc. I think I should still be able to do a pretty nice spray job all the same but frustrating that I cannot strip it as much as I wanted to and shoot it with as few obstructions as possible, but it is what it is and this is what I have to do. So spray it tonight, then tomorrow once the move is done put her back together and cure the paint, then I can ride it for commuting on Sunday morning, whew! :blush:



Thanks for listening to this goofball :whistle:
Brett

A day in the life.
Steve

So, unsurprisingly another new development hahaha, seems like this past week is nothing but changes and mistakes with my head being so consumed with the move that happens tomorrow early morning, but here is the latest and greatest one :blush:

Gotta have wheels Sunday morning so I can commute back to the old house where my office is still setup so I can work and make an income for the Irish family lol. Decided to just cut my loses temporarily and just leave the ending stripped as it is right now and just put everything back together and make it run then over the next month or so finish up the project slowly. So, spent about 45 min tops tonight putting everything back together, amazing how fast that process goes compared to getting it all apart for me :whistle:

Got it back together and due to the nature of the fairing the only pieces of the engine that are exposed are the parts that are nearly 100% stripped, or at least mostly and just showing a bit of black paint as a contrast. Unintentionally I think I stumbled onto something pretty slick and liking the look a lot of the engine as just bare aluminum with a bit of black paint (mostly the stuff I can't reach) still showing through! Can certainly change my mind again, but I think that I like how this looks and instead of painting it black I will simply spend more time stripping it a bit more and then getting rid of the major blemishes and gouges/scratches from the wire wheels and just polish up the aluminum some to a more brushed look and leave it, looks pretty good as is, what do y'all think??? :woohoo: :woohoo:

Brett

Wellll. :whistle:
Steve

Well still making small baby steps here and there, pretty tough to get any sort of time in the shop right now since we are doing the final pieces of the move wrapping up the small loads or random crapola here and there. Plus we are starting on the process of doing a scrub and complete clean on the old place so that we get as much if not all of our deposit back from the fascist control freak dickhead aka landlord, that we can. But I do get an hour here and there and have been destroying my hands sanding on the engine and cases and fins to clean it up, smooth out the rough edges and gouges from the stainless wire brushes and clean it up. I will probably leave the bare aluminum for a little while and then a bit later do a mask job and then spray it black again, but for now want to get it as clean and scratch and imperfection free as I can. Will take a few more pics this evening if I can and post them up.

On a related but separate note, finally got some money I was owed for 5 months a few days ago and very shortly will be able to afford to have the dents on my replacement tank popped and can get my new tank on the bike which will really beautify and clean up Saya!!! :woohoo:

Brett

Still making some small steps here and there, nothing major but lots of cleaning and touch up work. Got my front MC painted to get rid of the faded and scrapped off paint. Not perfect but wasn't trying to make it that way, just get it covers and sealed until I can remove it and strip it completely and put it back together. Same with the stator case and the other case on the other side (forget what is being it) of the road rash and put some paint on it to seal and clean it up until I can pull them off and sand it out and feather it back in and then paint again. Touched up some chips and corrosion on the cases and a few other things here and there. Spent about 1.5 hrs scrubbing and cleaning her up this past weekend too and even took degreaser and brushes to the wheels and swing arm and underside of the bike. All together she really cleaned up nicely and is looking great. Will keep making small steps as I can over the next several weeks

Brett

Well everything with the move and wrapping up the old house finally wrapped up yesterday, what a PITA that was and the landlord was trying to goad me and pick a fight the entire time, very unpleasant but finally done with this crap!

On the bike end of things though made some progress. Moved the home office to the new house so that means I don't have to use the bike to commute daily now and can tear back into the bike again.

On that front, I have stripped Saya down further than ever before and have been sanding and prepping the block, head and covers for paint soon. I also removed all of the exhaust as I will be cleaning, sanding and painting the header at the same time too. Should be able to spray everything in the next few days, depends on how work goes as well as how I feel since I have been battling my health pretty seriously lately too.

Brett

Hope you are feeling better.

Since we've got essentially the same bike: Does your chain contact the rub block on the swingarm when you are seated and in motion? Mine does - I'm not sure if it's because the chain is stretched to the point that the eccentric adjuster has to be adjusted too "low", of if there's something else going on. I've verified that I've got the OEM sprocket and chain sizes. It was far worse when the eccentrics were flipped as in your first picture several pages ago. So far I've only had it around the back yard a few laps - got the insurance card today so will probably be on the road for a test tomorrow.

Hey Aeckleh congrats on the ZX As for my chain and contact I will triple check but quite sure there isn't any rub on it. Do you have an FSM for the KZ750 that included the ZX supplementary sections? Shows the measurements for chain stretch on it, if not I will take a pic of it and post for you but sounds like it may be beyond its service limit.

Brett

Well after a few weeks of being able to put in time here and there I finally got the engine sanded and cleaned and painted high temp (2000F) flat black. While I was at it I also removed the exhaust and disassembled and cleaned and sanded.... geeez that's a lot of work for this little re-paint project haha. Ended after the sun went down so pics are in crappy fluorescent garage lighting but came out really well and I like it. Still have to re-assemble then cure everything' too. Once that's done I will buff and sand the edges of the fins as well as the raised markings on top of the cam cover to bare aluminum. Will take better pics in the morning but for now here's how it played out.

One of the pipes and th engine right before I sprayed em to show a bit of a before and after:

After paint was laid out and just tack dry: