1978 KZ1000-A2 "Barn find"

I have been lucky and never had a clutch problem so I’m not speaking from experience but, I’d suggest you pull the clutch spring plate. That will allow you to check the springs against the specs in the manual. Pull the pusher and ball. Clean them and the bore and install them with a light coating of high temp bearing grease. Wouldn’t hurt at that point to pull the steels and fiber plates just for inspection. While the plates are out inspect the sides of the basket fingers for grooves. I’d also go to the sprocket cover and pull it and the push rod to check it isn’t bent. Give it a slight lube and reinstall. Also pull the clutch release and clean out all the old grease and re-lube it.... might just be a combination of slightly sticky items that appear ok individually.

Either way it’s not wasted time, just good maintenance

I agree. You may have a broken clutch spring.

When you pull the clutch cover you can save your oil by having the bike on its side stand.

Honestly, how likely is it that the clutch spring could be broken at 8000 miles?

Anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible. If it's man-made it can be man-broke.....

Rick H.

hardrockminer wrote: When you pull the clutch cover you can save your oil by having the bike on its side stand.

Great tip Thank you

Rick H. wrote: Anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible. If it's man-made it can be man-broke.....

Rick H.

Reminds me of an old joke. They designed a new aptitude test and gave it to a mechanic, an electrician and a miner. The three were told to go into separate rooms and see what they could make with 3 steel balls. After an hour they checked the mechanic and he had put them under a board to make a dolly. The electrician put his together and made the base for a lamp. And when they checked to see what the miner had done....he had lost one, broken one and was carrying the third one out in his lunch kit.

Valve shims showed up today. No one seemed to have kits online, so I turned to eBay, and got a pretty incredible deal from a shop that went out of business. Included shim tools. There's enough shims here that I could probably take out what I need with a few to spare, then turn around and resell the kit to recoup my money.

As great as it is that the shims are here, probably won't get after it for a bit. The big side of the shop is going to be getting the floor epoxied, so my side has just become temporary storage.

Managed to get in to the shop before it got filled up with stuff and get valve clearances done. That dealt with the issue of low compression on cylinder 3.

Also got the carbs reinstalled and got it back outside in the sun.

It’s come a long way. Great job.

Delkevic sounds great. Sounds nicely tuned! Excellent accomplishment . Well done.

It sounds great! Where in Alberta are you located? I have a brother in Calgary, and he has been under snow since October.