KZ650 cafe-racer

Nice work Gazzz, you have the cleanest workshop I have ever seen....!!!!

I admire your restraint - if I was at that stage I'd be up until 2 A.M. finishing the engine. Beautiful work!

Absolutely beautiful assembly and pics. extremely righteous

Thanks!

wrote:

With pistons in place and rings gaps aligned according to Wiseco recommendations it was time to prepare things for cylinder installation. First came brand new (Liska Racing) lower idler roller, new genuine roller shaft and damper rubbers.

 

I don't see where you put o-rings on studs. I am sure you did, just didn't see it documented.

And that bearing on liska roller has some surface rust. Are you sure it's OK? 

It's definitely not rust. It looks rather like heat treating (goldish brown colour) and it was like that from the start, see photos attached. I've checked, it's not an unusual finish for Koyo needle bearings that were made in Germany. 

As for the studs O-rings, you definitely have seen my post about them, because that post already bears your like: www.kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/610746...cer?start=408#850596

wrote:

As for the studs O-rings, you definitely have seen my post about them, because that post already bears your like: www.kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/610746...cer?start=408#850596

I forgot those stud O-rings when building my 750 engine.  Fingers crossed they are not critical...

wrote:

It's definitely not rust. It looks rather like heat treating (goldish brown colour) and it was like that from the start, see photos attached. I've checked, it's not an unusual finish for Koyo needle bearings that were made in Germany. 

As for the studs O-rings, you definitely have seen my post about them, because that post already bears your like: www.kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/610746...cer?start=408#850596

yes, I forgot I figured you would do it right before putting cylinders on.

as far as rust goes - that was a joke

I forgot those stud O-rings when building my 750 engine.  Fingers crossed they are not critical...

From two holes for studs that have to be equipped with O-ring only one (front) is not blind.  With crankcase ventilation working correctly there is no pressure as such in the engine case.So all you are facing is the theoretical possibility of oil sweating through the stud thread. With the stud tightened, the non-threaded part (boss) of the stud  closes the hole pretty tight. O-ring just makes the system completely bullet proof. When I was removing the studs, the stud with O-ring and non-blind hole was as hard to remove as any other, so  I could assume that no oil sweating happened to it.

With the cylinder head in place my next tasks were camshafts installation and timing adjustment. I bought a Kawasaki Zephyr 750 camshafts for the KZ650 project. They are mostly identical to KZ750 camshafts and have similar lobe heights but Zephyr 750 exhaust camshaft has only blank in place where KZ750 has tachometer gear. Therefore, Zephyr 750 camshafts are still compatible with KZ650 cylinder head and camshaft sprockets.

Photos of me  working was taken, as usually, by Oksana. 



All-new components of new upper idler assembly: 



PMC manual tensioner. 

As for the valve shims, I started with the thinnest on the first camshafts installation and then, after measuring gaps I replaced them with shims of correct values. 





As for the timing adjustment, well,  it’d be better to put it in a separate article (and pictures for it are already ready). 

Therefore, let’s jump to the  transmission cover. And again, all components except the cover itself and neutral switch were new. 



I didn’t use the shift shaft oil seal guide for cover installation. Instead I checked the shaft for smoothness and put the cover slowly with seal and shaft oiled.