Topic: NobleHops restores a 1975 Z1

[NobleHops]

OK, on to the oil pump.



Was definitely locktited prior, was afraid I'd break a screw. Heated them up for a bit...



Presto:



Measured those clearances - they were fine. Slighly worn over the spec of normal, halfway to the service limit. No problem.




Dirty screen!



Cleaned it :-)



Chased those threads and wire-wheeled the screws of the residual locktite:



Awaiting a gasket, and perhaps lapping of the gasket surface - is that the recommended treatment before reassembly Steve?



Case bolts, freshly replated, waiting for my gaskets and seals, more patiently than I. 

[NobleHops]

Quick update on the oil pump project.



Got my gasket in for the oil pump, and so put that back together. Lapped that flat cover on a sheet of glass with some 320 and then 1000 grit and a few drops of 3-in-1 oil and that came out great. Removed all the scoring from that end, left it super smooth and flat.









Put it all back together, twice, because I wasn't paying attention and put the drive gear in backwards the first time...



...with a few drops of oil on the gears, locktited the screws, straightened out and installed a slightly bockety pickup screen...



...good to go. It now turns really smoothly where before it was a little rough.

Got my new stock clutch springs in, so next up is the clutch pack. Current plan, subject to your advice, is to break the stack down, clean and then beadblast the steels, and soak the fibers in motor oil overnight, then reassemble with the new springs.



A cursory inspection of the fingers on the clutch basket showed no notchiness or grooving, but even so, would I be wise to go over those edges with some abrasive or something? Or leave it be? Any other generalized assembly advice?

Last conundrum for the moment: I am stuffed finding a 70mm two-piece gasket. Closest I have found is a 71mm copper gasket (.043), which seems like it ought to work fine on my 70mm bores, but I am a little concerned about raising the compression even more than I am already with the high comp pistons. Your man Jaquish does not seem to have what I need either Steve. Could I simply carefully cut apart a one-piece gasket instead?

Anyone got a good lead on a supplier for this gasket? Back to my Googling...

N.[/quote]

[NobleHops]

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I now have all my gaskets in hand and so got to business reassembling the engine - Yay! The bad news is I got almost immediately stopped on the transmission reassembly because I didn't inspect closely enough and I think it needs parts and work.

On the transmission output shaft, this outer needle bearing race is AFU. Can't imagine how this happened, there's no sign of carnage on the case and the locating pin is intact. The bearing feels fine within, thinking I can just swap a replacement of this onto it, but haven't delved into the parts list to see what it is.



Also going to post some photos of the engagement dogs, I should have inspected these before now, but several of them are rounded over and worn.  What do we think about this amount of wear men? And what's the best course of action? Replace this shaft with a good used one? Would I be wise to replace the primary shaft at the same time, thinking they wear as a pair?

OK, gonna post a slew of transmission photos appreciate your thoughts on this:

























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[NobleHops]

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OK, here are some better pics. Looking at the fiche, this one that I am concerned about is 5th gear, which is pretty odd, but as one of my local mentors points out, the least likely to jump out of gear. All the others on both shafts look fine, then are not nearly as rounded over, seem to engage positively.









Here are the 'bearing caps" aka "Bushing, drive shaft, and Bushing, output shaft" in Kawa-speak. Both have damage and wear, and in this first photo of the end of the driveshaft that dark smudge is metal - it'd cut you if you rubbed your thumb over it. The second photo is the one I was first concerned with on the output shaft. Lots of wear and damage and missing metal. This alone would make the transmission whine from misalignment I think.





Lastly - the needle bearing at the clutch basket hub has a fair amount of play axially. The big bearings all feel fine, silky smooth, no play. All the other gears and dogs look fine, no particular wear on the gear teeth, the engagement dogs look fine. 

So I think I will replace all three needle bearings - the two on the drive shaft and the one on the output shaft, and also the two 'caps' on each shaft. I also have a call into a couple of local machinists to see if they do the undercutting of gears and if they do I will bring them the pair of gears on that output shaft that are engaging and get them worked over. Then I am going to put this together with my new clutch fiber plates and scuffed-up steels and new clutch springs and declare victory over the transmission.

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[NobleHops]

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I got with my local machinist, showed him a photo of 5th gear's dogs and he said "NFW" should it put it back in. And the part is NLA from Kawasaki. So the hunt is on, and sure enough many of the eBay sellers somehow have these two gears closed up in their photos :-).

No doubt I'll find one, but word to the wise, if your transmission is popping out of second gear now and then, find and hoard one of these in good condition or better yet an entire young transmission while you can.

Will carry on later this week with the assembly of the clutch and the alternator cover and grommet.

[NobleHops]

HOORAY!

Logjam broken. I have been hunting and buying transmission parts, still waiting for roller bearings to arrive from Partzilla, but in the interim I spotted an entire transmission on eBay from Sichley Motorsports. They reported it was from a bike with ~20K miles, and it was really clean and looked to be in excellent condition. I could not however see the gear dogs from 5th to 2nd, and they had already warehoused it so it couldn't be easily photographed. For $130 I decided, "why not", bought it and it arrived yesterday. It looks near-new, was apparently never raced or ridden hard. The critical dogs are nearly unmarked. That's my winner, I am going to put this in in its entirety and save the other trans and parts for the second Z1, when it gets its turn.

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[NobleHops]

Hey Nils.....any update on the Z?

Why yes Stev-o!  :-)

Well hello there fellas.

Pardon the delay, we got super busy here on customer work (WE MUST NOT SPEAK OF WHAT WE DO FOR MONEY IN THE OTHER HALF OF THE SHOP OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES), and the poor Z1 got put on hold for a bit, but that stuff is OVER :-). This bike needs to be done in a month when my buddy arrives for a tour here in the southwest, and we're back into it this week.

Catching you up, we found some manky gears/dogs in the transmission, punted on those and sourced a replacement set of gears, some new bearings and bushings, and an entire transmission, in much better condition overall. So I opted to put the whole transmission in this bike, and kept the other parts to refurbish another transmission when I get into the second Z1.

So today I (literally) dusted off the cases, reminded myself where I left off, and I assembled the crankcase.

Everything went well - I went slowly and checked a lot of stuff twice, had some fun scratching my ass about why the trans would not shift to second till I was reminded of the neutral finder, satisfied myself that I had everything installed correctly, and buttoned up the crankcase. I did replace the needle bearings on the transmission and one of the bushings, plus the clutch basket bearing. With a skosh of lubrication everything turned super freely and felt great.

Had one minor head scratching moment installing the kickstarter shaft I'd appreciate some feedback on: The manual says to turn the shaft clockwise a full turn bnefore installing the spring, and I could see that there is a pawl and a steel stop on the crankcase. Figured what they were after was to rotate the shaft till the pawl hit the stop, and THEN install the spring into the locating hole in the shaft. So I did, but of course the hole was about 180 degrees from the spring end with the shaft in this rotated position. Figuring that the purpose was to more or less cock this spring with the shaft in the proper position, I grabbed the free end of the spring, rotated it 180 degrees and inserted it into the shaft, then slipped the allow spring guide into place, no problem, but as soon as I let go, of course the spring pulled it back the 180 degrees to where it was. This all makes sense to me, but I thought I'd run it by you guys. Is this the proper way to install this? Here's a photo of the finished result.



EDIT: This photo is NOT CORRECT. Read on in this thread.


More...

[NobleHops]

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Just for the benefit of the next person looking for reference, let me fill this in a little better, as it's not quite that simple.

This is my disassembly photo:



The best technique for getting this oriented properly is as follows, more or less as described in the manual, but for clarity:

Install the kickstart shaft, close the cases, etc.

Temporarily install the splined base of the kickstart lever assembly to actuate the shaft, and turn it CLOCKWISE till it stops. Unless you happenned to install it in the perfect location, it will rachet-click several times till the pawl on the shaft comes to rest on the steel stop that is bolted to the case interior.  WITH THE ENGINE INVERTED as is normal for reassembly, the hole IN THE SHAFT OF THE KICKSTART MECHANISM should be oriented at roughly 10:00 as shown in the above disassembly photo.

Insert the kickstart return spring with the pointy end into the recess between the case halves.

Grab the opposite end of the spring with your biggest, pointy-est needle-nose pliers and twist the spring about 180 degrees COUNTERCLOCKWISE so it can be inserted into the hole in the shaft. Have a big screwdriver in your other hand to lever it into place.

Insert the alloy guide between the spring and shaft.

When you're finished it should look like this, and the lever base should install nearly parallel with the back edge of the engine case.




Hope that's helpful to someone down the road.

N.

[NobleHops]

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Some photos of the rebuild, just because I know you enjoy them:



















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[NobleHops]

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[NobleHops]

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[NobleHops]

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For no good reason other than the infamous "while I'm here" I skinned the starter to see what service I could give it before reassembly.



Found a pretty nominal amount of carbon brush dust and goo, tarnish on the commutator, but in fact everything was in good condition, including the brushes. When I was buying parts I could not find a rebuild for this particular starter, although just about every other KZ bike had a kit available, so I took a flyer and bought a starter rebuild kit for a KZ900 (might have been a 1000), hoping it might be the same. The bad news was that it wasn't, exactly. Seems like the later starter is just a skosh bigger in diameter so the gaskets for the case didn't fit. but the seal and the bearing did. and so would have the bushing in the cap, but the one that was in there was fine, and a PITA to extract, so I didn't use it.

Cap and brush end:



Windings and commutator at right:



Body, permanent magnets, manky sheath.



I removed the sheath altogether (wire was in perfect shape and seemed well insulated as it was,), cleaned each ring terminal and replaced the boot for the lead. Cleaned up everything, paying particular attention to the grooves on the commutator (neglected to photo that). Polished up the commutator surface till it looked like a new penny though. Replaced the seal. bearing and O-ring at the output end, vapor blasted the case, and put it back together.

1 hour and $18 later, it looks and worked like new. Next! :-)




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[NobleHops]

I was ready for a fight from the alternator and I'm not sure why, but that went back together easily. Polished up the end of the crankshaft as prior, scrounged up the woodruff key, and after a minor around of wiggling and puzzling I got the rotor on.





Popped the stator back in, found my original grommet intact and pretty soft, so I sealed its edges and filled that cavity with high temp RTV. pressed the grommet back in place and bolted it up to cure under pressure. Fingers crossed I don't get a leaker, but I know what to do and I have new grommets in hand if it does.



Marty (Z1KZonly) super kindly mailed me a few better connectors for the other end, so (after a bit of puzzling figuring out that the tangs to disengage the wires are on the SIDES on these connectors) I extracted the wires, cleaned and inspected the terminals, and then reinstalled then into the new connector.

Marty's connector, reference for the wire positions:



It's a little thing, but I am happy to have this better connector on there, and the electrical connections perfectly clean and renewed.

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[NobleHops]

...Coupla engine reassembly notes. Got a lot of well qualified advice from several folks on sealing up the engine, but not all of it the same. I settled on the use of a Permatex copper gasket sealant, sprayed on. Sprayed both gaskets, installed the O-Ring, and attempted to use some cheap-ish Pit Posse piston ring compressors to install the pistons.





Got my ass kicked for a bit this way, punted and went back to putting the pistons in two at a time, with my helper on one and me on the other, cramming the rings in the good old fashioned way, with our fingertips. Worked fine :-)





Bolted up the head, following the sequence and torque specs carefully, installed the upper cam bearings for safekeeping. Will retorque the head after a proper heat-cycling as prescribed.





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[NobleHops]

...Can't find my head assembly photos, although I feel sure I took them! Larry Cavanaugh had coached me to make certain everything fit together and the bearing caps fit onto the dowels with no resistance, so I spent some quality time with the thread repair taps chasing all the threads and checking the fit of the dowels before I installed the cams and caps.

Read several threads about the cam installation (including some with sad endings) and went pretty carefully about that. Got the cams installed and timed correctly, and the tensioners and idlers all installed with new rubber damping pads.

Measured and and adjusted all the valve clearances once everything was torqued, twice for good measure. My machinist tipped the valves but even so I needed some pretty skinny shims in a few to get them adjusted, I will check that again after a few outings to see how things bed in - they are on the looser end of the spec for starters.

Installed the new shifter springs, engine oil seals, grabbed a couple of big bucks from the business next door, and we put that sucker in the frame. Always a happy moment.



Installed the starter, ignition and covers, clutch cover and gasket, generator cover...



Tidied up the Dyna coils, made some new 7mm plug wires for them, and fussed for a solid hour getting them installed to my liking. Very snug fit to the top frame backbone. Thoughts on that?





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[NobleHops]

Put the rear end back together, fenders, taillight, turnsignals, bracket, wiring, dampers, yadda.This thing is looking more and more like a motorcycle.



Installed a new 630 chain and sprockets, stock gearing.



Thrashed for a solid hour getting the rear brake rod, arms, brake switch rid and spring, and lever installed. Should have been 15 minutes! Discovered a slightly tweaky brake lever - that's gonna need a little heat and coercion to straighten it a skosh.



On to the front of the bike: Installed the front calipers, discovering along the way that I had two left brake pipes, and no rights, because apparently the part does not exist! My local Pirtek guys kick ass though, and make me a matching pair using the left that I had as a pattern and they both fit perfectly.



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[NobleHops]

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Installed this lovely Doremi exhaust system. Wow - this is a beautiful set of pipes, and the fit and ease of installation were frankly awesome.





I had to just sit there and stare at these for a while. To me they just make the bike.

Installed the rear grab bar, tailsection. Oh boy, painted parts!



Got my ass kicked again by the seat latch, installing the teeny washer on the actuator rod. Tip for the next guy: Put a dab of the stickiest grease you have on your fingertip, put the washer on that, close your eyes and "use the force" to get it on in the right orientation.

On to the front of the bike.  Installed the handlebars, gauges, and finalized the front wiring.

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Installed the clutch, tach, speedo and throttle cables. Using a new modern Nissin radial 5/8 master cylinder to go with the dual calipers. Powdercoated the brake and clutch levers black. Installed the front fender, brake lines and splitter, filled and bled the brakes. Gave 'er a smooch :-)



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[NobleHops]

Onto the painted bodywork! Flat badge, meet compound-curved tank:



My indentured buddy took a short length of 2" steel pipe and used it like an English wheel, gently rolling the badge over the pipe with pressure and checking the fit. Bend, test fit on the tank, bend, test fit. Worked great.

Ditto on the sidecover badge:



Put the tank and the sidecovers on, installed the seat, removed my grubby handprints and tidied up some tools, took a few steps back and saw this :-)







...and then we took that stuff back off, hooked up some gas, hit the starter for the first time, and got this (click the image for the video):

[NobleHops]

I've got some loose ends to attend to this coming week before I ride it and shake down the inevitable bugs. I need to rebuild and install the petcock, fuel lines, and sync the carbs. That may be as good a time as any to re-torque the head. Brakes might like one last bleed and check for leaks, but maybe not, they were pretty good when we finished them. Ignition was quickly static-timed, and I need to revisit that more carefully and check the advance timing with a light. Clutch and throttle and cables need adjusting. Headlight looks dingy, need to source a new replacement.  That's all I can think of, then it's time for a test ride  :woohoo:

I will be back shortly with some riding and suspension impressions. So stay tuned as this project winds down...

[jerry h]

Great write up and pics!
(I know I shouldn't be saying this on the SOHC forum), but darn!!!  the Z1, is one of the most beautiful bike designs of all time.

Very nice!

[NobleHops]

Great write up and pics!
(I know I shouldn't be saying this on the SOHC forum), but darn!!!  the Z1, is one of the most beautiful bike designs of all time.

Very nice!

Thank you Jerry. I love them both, in slightly different ways. The Hondas have an elegance of design and engineering that is unique. The Kawasakis of the era are actually very similar in many ways, better in some, maybe not quite as refined in others. I really admire the Hondas of the 70s but in truth, it's the Kawasakis of the 70s that give me wood :-).

[CycleRanger]

Terrific attention to detail and results! 
I like your cookie trays and racks. Good system.
My shop will never be that clean or organized.

[Stev-o]

I really admire the Hondas of the 70s but in truth, it's the Kawasakis of the 70s that give me wood :-).

+1!    I like to think the Hondas are like the nice girl next door. Kawasaki is the bad girl down the block that you want to party with all night!

The Z is looking great, Nils, awesome job.   I also put the Domemi  pipes [and bodywork] on mine, great fit and finish.

[NobleHops]

Terrific attention to detail and results! 
I like your cookie trays and racks. Good system.
My shop will never be that clean or organized.

Haha, thanks man. The organization is a constant battle. As soon as I start walking around looking for something that isn't where I expected it to be I stop everything and put everything back where it belongs, and then restart. Not exactly efficient but it's the best I know how to do. The trays and racks help. Those are baking sheets - cheap at Amazon, lined with cheap toolbox liner. The racks I got at a local used restaurant supply place. More affordable than you'd think, and definitely space efficient.

Thanks for the good words!

N.