I feeking giveup!!!!

ok.thx for your input,,

Pat - best of luck getting your ride back into your happy place. The guys on this forum are amazing, and have helped me in countless ways on my project. It has always been difficult to find honest mechanics that will do the job correctly without "cutting corners" for a profit margin. Don't let new learning new things scare you. Everyone here has got your six...

Skidmark wrote: Everyone here has got your six...

Awsome

IGY6

I would be happy to do the work if you lived near me, but you are on the opposite side of the continent.

You can do it .Im a roofer /sider . Its pretty simple to do a few checks to see whats going on . We can talk you through it on here easy peasy .

I am a little late coming to the party on this one and correct me if I am wrong, but there appears to be some question on what was actually done to your bike. That being true you really need to take a good look at the engine and see if things were replaced that you can SEE. Check gasket lines and sealing surfaces, do the gaskets look like they have been replaced? It should be relatively easy to see if new gaskets have been installed. I am not sure how many total miles you have on the engine since the alleged rebuild but you should be able to bring the pistons up to top dead center one at a time and look the the spark plug hole with a small flashlight and examine the top of the piston. Does it look new? Is it relatively carbon free? Certainly you can buy a small scope to peer into the cylinders and that would be a really good option so you could see the cylinder walls, but knowing the pistons looked fresh would be a real bonus. If you know anyone in the automotive repair business many of them have these scopes and may be willing to come over to where the bike is to do an examination for a small fee, or perhaps you can take the bike to them It isn't difficult at all, spark plugs out....scope lens in. I would be surprised if your mechanic installed pistons and didn't hone, or bore the cylinders. If the right type of scope is used you should be able to at least see part of the valves, but may be not all of them, but once again it would give you an idea if any valve work was done. So far almost no real mechanical knowledge or work has been needed but you should know if your mechanic is being truthful about what was done.

To follow up on what has already been said, after doing a visual examination you can get to a really good compression test. I like to do at least 2 of them to verify my results. Each cylinder must be done the same and make sure your battery is up to snuff for this. Many times guys forget to hold the throttle completely open for each cylinder and they get false results. Five or six revolutions of each cylinder should be enough for max compression readings but you many need a few more. By this point you will have a lot more knowledge about the condition of the engine and what was done to it. You could report your findings back to us here on the forum and we could offer guidance on what do to next. You just have to accept the fact you want to learn how to do this stuff or at least the basics so you can make an educated decision on what to do next. There are things even the best of us can't do, or won't do on our own engines. I won't mess with a valve job or cylinder boring. Both an an art that requires repetition to get good at, plus the milling machine I have isn't big enough to handle boring a cylinder block. So I am relegated to taking those parts into what I have determined to be a high quality repair shop. The other frustrating part of all this is not having the proper tools for the job. In most cases just having basic hand tools will be sufficient but there are certain tools you WILL need. A really good torque wrench is mandatory, in fact two of them, one in foot pounds and one in inch pounds. You can rent those but I wouldn't trust rental torque wrenches as far as I could throw them because that's probably how they have been treated. Remember Kawasaki's use metric fasteners and even their screws are special. You need a couple of JIS screwdrivers or risk untold grief and damaged screws. Buy them!

I was told a long time ago that lack of knowledge breeds frustration and frustration leads to anger. If you get angry the motorcycle wins! It doesn't want you messing with it. It likes being left alone. Get the knowledge which gives you confidence and dig in. Will you makes mistakes along the way? Certainly you will but don't try to cover them up or look the other way. Just start over and do it right, generally by the book and it will all work itself out. Lord knows there are lots of guys here ready to offer assistance. Good luck now get out on that field Rudy!!!

Rick H.

Building a hip roof that is strong, functional and beautiful requires a great deal of knowledge, skill, experience, and the right tools. I am willing to bet you had none of these the day you were born, and that you had a good teacher or two along the way and that you made some mistakes early on.

Learning to do maintenance and basic diagnostics on one of these old air cooled bikes is no more difficult to learn. If you can learn something as complex as designing and building a roof, you can learn this. There are a bunch of good, patient teachers around here who are willing to help you with all of it. I think you will be surprised how quickly you will pick it up. Yes, you will make mistakes, and we will rib you a bit because we have all been there and made the same mistakes.

Ruuudy! Ruuudy! Ruuudy!

Here is the list that the builder sent me for the$3000 of tasks he said that he completed.

Basically he bought a set of rings, head gaskets and cam end plugs. Maybe a base gasket as well, because you can't change the rings without removing the cylinders, which means you need a new base gasket. Or maybe he re-used it? Anyway, not a lot of new parts....mostly his labour. Definitely not worth $3,000 in my opinion. But you got $2,000 back so probably the right amount for what he did. Assuming it was done well.

I thought he also rebuilt the carbs? No parts mentioned.

Your problem now is to figure out why the bike doesn't run well. You've already been advised to do a compression test and I agree with that advice. That's the first thing you should do or get done. It's a 20 minute job if you have a compression tester. Martin has provided instructions on how to do it. If you feel like you can't do it then maybe get a friend to do it or take the bike to a shop and have it done.

One thing you should know....vintage bikes can be fine machines to own but are not maintenance free. Most shops don't have people who can work on them anymore, and if they do, they charge a lot for their work. If you want to ride a vintage bike you need to be prepared to do basic maintenance, like changing oil, filters, adjusting carbs and setting timing, valve lash, etc. If you can't or won't do that kind of work then your choices are find someone who can, or give up vintage bikes.

I charge $800 for a ring job, a light valve seat cut with lapping and valve shims. OUT OF $800, $500 is labor.
$100 for tune up plus parts.
The tune up is extra for a dyno tune, from a local shop.

Just do the work yourself.




You will feel better about it.