Topic: Terry's Kawasaki ZZR1100 "Bring it back to life" project.

[spotty]

Take all the fun out of it, you could build the big K version of a Vmax, stupid power, #$%* brakes and rubber frame

[Terry in Australia]

Well I had to push my wicked Zed out of the way so I could concentrate on the ZZR engine rebuild today, I was really keen to fire the drag bike up and take it for a blat up the street, but I was strong, and set about the ZZR rebuild.

ZZR engine rebuild by terry prendergast, on Flickr

I checked my previous work and was happy that everything looked good, so I decided the start on the top end of the engine, my rationale being that the engine's a lot more stable without all the crap that bolts underneath. I located the cylinder block and compared the NOS Kawasaki sleeve.

ZZR engine rebuild 1 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR engine rebuild 3 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

So far, so good. I fired up my industrial oven in my garage, cranked it around to 220 deg C, then let it warm up with the block in place so it heated up gradually. After 30 or 40 minutes the old sleeve popped out with a tap from my aluminium hammer, and the new one fell straight it. I did all this in the oven, then let the block cool down with the oven, as I had to go out.

Being that I was in a rush to go out (the movie that my son was working on last year was having a special screening and the director and crew were going to be there to do a "Q&A" session after the screening) I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the new sleeve in place, but I will in the morning. More tomorrow.

ZZR engine rebuild 8 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

[mick7504]

Are you going to deck the block to get it Billiard Table flat mate?
I've seen a few sleeves installed that have gone in flush but I can't remember when. 

[simon#42]

i am a bit late with this advice but make sure you have plenty of weight on the liner while it is cooling ( i hold them in the press )  otherwise as the cylinder cools
it can squeeze the liner up slightly .  if you then deck the cylinder it can move when hot .

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks guys, and yep, you're dead right, when I pulled it out of the oven, it was sitting proud of the block by around .001, bugger it. Oh well, more on that later.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve by terry prendergast, on Flickr

As suspected, the sleeve was slightly undersize, so I "umm-ed and ahh-ed" over whether I should bore the cylinder out, or just hone it.

I decided to go with the hone, the problem with my old Repco boring bar is that it really wasn't designed for boring such large cylinders (76mm) so while I could have extended the cutting tool all the way out, if something fcuked up it would have been curtains for "moi", so I pulled out my old Ammco 4 stone hone instead.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 1 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 2 by terry prendergast, on Flickr   

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 3 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 4 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

Honing out that amount of metal is a filthy tedious job, but the good thing is you can stop every now and again and measure your progress, and because it cuts such a fine amount of metal away, it's pretty much impossible to take too much metal out. I used the damaged piston as a guide, but I'll finish-hone that sleeve with the actual piston before I shove it back together.

After 3 hours in 50 deg F temps my poor old Bursitis ridden shoulders had had enough, so I fired up the oven again and this time I put some blocks under either end and put some weight on the new sleeve, then went back an hour later and gave it a couple of taps with a hammer to help seat it, but if that doesn't work, Simon's given me an idea, I might have to manufacture a simple sleeve press and put some tension on it, then pop it back in the oven again. More later.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 5 by terry prendergast, on Flickr 

[PeWe]

Hi Terry! No news?
If no bike restore/upgrade pics, cat pics work too    It makes the thread bubbling.

[spotty]

on the subject of old Z's, this should keep the contents of your stomach bubbling...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/kawasaki-z650-1978-chopper-project/362363508557?_trkparms=aid%3D777001%26algo%3DDISCO.FEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160801204525%26meid%3De9037ace479f4a2a9f3a42979b5a1ed0%26pid%3D100651%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26%26itm%3D362363508557&_trksid=p2481888.c100651.m4497&_trkparms=pageci%3A47bf945f-7a50-11e8-a74e-74dbd180e3e3%7Cparentrq%3A4320e04d1640a9cad0933a7efff8f01c%7Ciid%3A1

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, well I was never really a fan of the Z650 Spotty, but it reminded me of a situation on this site, maybe 10 years ago when I said that the Z650 was faster than the CB75. One of the younger US members here disagreed most vehemently. He got so carried away with the argument that he actually bought one, just to prove me wrong! Shortly afterwards he crashed it and almost killed himself, he was badly busted up, but he did have the decency to say that in fact I was right, the little Z was a quick bike, indeed. I bought a Z750L1 for $200 in the late 80's when I lived in Brisbane and restored it, it looked a million bucks but I didn't like it, so I traded it in on a Ducati 900SS at Phil Beaumonts, but it was a pile-o-sh1te. Actually come to think of it, compared to a Ducati, my ZZR1100 is an engineering marvel! And Per, thanks mate, I'll post a pic of Leo when I get home from work.

[spotty]

you don't take Leo to work ? poor little cat

[Terry in Australia]

He'd come with me if I offered Spotty, he's more like a dog than a cat, it must have something to do with his breed (Abyssinian) he's waiting outside my bedroom door ready to go at 0530 every morning, and looks really pissed off when I don't take him with me? If he only knew what a boring job I've got, he'd stay in bed!

[spotty]

it does cheer the dogs up when i bring them in for the day, they get walked a couple of times during the day and fed loads of biscuits and leftover lunches

got a price of $30ish for a 4 litre bottle of the wheel clean, let me know if you need that much or i'll just swipe a smaller amount when no-ones looking

[Terry in Australia]

$30 sounds fine mate, thanks very much!

[spotty]

should be delivered next friday

[Terry in Australia]

No worries, send me your bank details and I'll fix you up!

[vfourfreak]

No worries, send me your bank details and I'll fix you up!

Send them to me and all Spotty. I'll fix up your account for ya.

Kev

[mick7504]

Thanks guys, and yep, you're dead right, when I pulled it out of the oven, it was sitting proud of the block by around .001, bugger it. Oh well, more on that later.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve by terry prendergast, on Flickr

As suspected, the sleeve was slightly undersize, so I "umm-ed and ahh-ed" over whether I should bore the cylinder out, or just hone it.

I decided to go with the hone, the problem with my old Repco boring bar is that it really wasn't designed for boring such large cylinders (76mm) so while I could have extended the cutting tool all the way out, if something fcuked up it would have been curtains for "moi", so I pulled out my old Ammco 4 stone hone instead.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 1 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 2 by terry prendergast, on Flickr   

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 3 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 4 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

Honing out that amount of metal is a filthy tedious job, but the good thing is you can stop every now and again and measure your progress, and because it cuts such a fine amount of metal away, it's pretty much impossible to take too much metal out. I used the damaged piston as a guide, but I'll finish-hone that sleeve with the actual piston before I shove it back together.

After 3 hours in 50 deg F temps my poor old Bursitis ridden shoulders had had enough, so I fired up the oven again and this time I put some blocks under either end and put some weight on the new sleeve, then went back an hour later and gave it a couple of taps with a hammer to help seat it, but if that doesn't work, Simon's given me an idea, I might have to manufacture a simple sleeve press and put some tension on it, then pop it back in the oven again. More later.

ZZR Cylinder new sleeve 5 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

One other thing that you can do Terry, and is backtracking, is to raise the new liner and take a measurement of the lip thickness and compare it with the original one.
It'll give you a bench mark to work with.
Also run a straight edge across the base of the 4 liners and see if there is any unusual variations between them.
The variation at the top should be the variation at the bottom if it isn't seated properly.
Just a thought mate. 

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Mick, good point. The extra weights made no difference so I will run a straight edge over it, but I've also come up with a cunning plan, a plan so cunning, you could pin a tail on it, and call it a fox! (With apologies to Black Adder) I'm going to make a special "Sleeve Puller" to pull the sleeve down while my block is roasting in the oven. I really don't need to go to the lengths to build this special tool, except that it's cold, and I'm bored, and I like to make things on my lathe.......

[spotty]

terry, msg me on oh fore four nyne too oh ate to too noine and i'll send you the numbers

[Terry in Australia]

OK, so I knocked off from work, got home in daylight, and thought, "Hmmnnnn, I better do something about that sleeve", so I wandered out to my garage and fired up the lathe. My original plan was to have two threaded rods either side of the cylinder block, but then I thought it'd be easier to just have a round plug that sat on top of the sleeve with a threaded rod through the centre.

I ratted thru my scraps of metal and found an oil cooler adapter I'd stuffed up back when I was making them for members here, so I machined a little more material off so it fit in the sleeve nicely, cut a length of threaded rod, and found some more scraps to hold it in place while I wound the nut down.

ZZR sleeve clamp by terry prendergast, on Flickr

I assembled the clamp, and actually as soon as I put some tension on it I'm pretty sure it pulled the sleeve down flush in the block, but it was a bit dark in my little oven, so I couldn't see for sure, but as the heat was on anyway I decided that the tension on the threaded rod combined with 450 deg F would surely do the job.

ZZR sleeve clamp 4 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

ZZR sleeve clamp 1 by terry prendergast, on Flickr

Anyhoo, I reckon that will do the job, the oven's been on for a couple of hours no, so I'll go turn it off, and check again in the morning. Night all!

ZZR sleeve clamp 2 by terry prendergast, on Flickr   

[Terry in Australia]

Well that was disappointing, I got back from my fortnightly 400 mile drive to visit my Ma, wandered out to the garage to check my handiwork and discovered that the sleeve is still sitting proud of the block, despite my wonderful clamp! Hmmnnn, now I'm thinking maybe I should pop it back out, then see if there's something sitting in the recess that I need to clean out? It won't hurt to have it machined, but Inquisitive minds need to know? More soon.

[754]

Did you measure depth of counter bore and compare to width of the lip, before you installed ?

[Terry in Australia]

Nope it was 450 deg F Frank, and my plastic ruler kept melting!.......

[BobbyR]

I am not sure if freezing the sleeves and heating the block would help. just a thought.

[PeWe]

It must be professionals that do resleeving several times a week or have done and know how to do and not.

[Terry in Australia]

I've done heaps of CB750 and Suzuki GS1000 sleeves in the same manner as I did this one, but they were all used sleeves that I "recycled" into other engines. (Usually from trashed blocks with busted fins etc. Mick was probably right several posts ago in that a new sleeve, apart from being delivered undersized, might also have a little extra height that needs to be machined off, but I'll pop the sleeve back out again, just to make sure there's no crap that's fallen into the recess. No need to freeze the sleeve at the moment, it's winter here, so I just leave the sleeve on my bench and it's plenty cold......