So the worst thing about building an engine, as opposed to pulling one apart is that you need to spend so much time cleaning everything before you can assemble it. I'm not averse to cleaning parts, but it does slow the process somewhat. On top of that, because I'm building this engine from various parts that I've bought on Ebay (many of which haven't turned up yet, due to CV slowing down the international shipping to a snails pace dammit, BIKE PARTS MATTER!) there's a lot of checking, measuring, testing and adjusting required to make sure everything will work together.
Due to my OCD, I've bought 4 different crankshafts so far. Why? Well being a Kawasaki rebuilder noob, the first one I bought (a NOS Eagle welded and balanced job) was for a later Mk2 which used a hyvo chain. No worries, I figured that seeing the bike had a GPZ1100 top end, it would be running a hyvo chain set up? Nope, wrong again, it's using a mix of Z1000 chain and lower tensioners, and a GPZ1100 top tensioner, on a standard chain. Fcuk. Not a real biggie, because I'd spotted another Z1 crank that was balanced and welded, so I bought it too. That of course meant that I needed another one for the Z1, so as I'd saved 2 other cranks in "My Ebay" I quickly hit the "buy it now" only to realise that I'd bought one that hadn't been welded or balanced. It is a NOS original crank though, with a starter clutch and later alternator rotor, so I'll remove them and put them on this engine, and sell the two cranks I don't need, once the Z1 balanced and welded crank I bought for my Z1 engine arrives............
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
The crank had all new bearings fitted before it was welded, which is good to know, but annoyingly, the bearing outer shells were missing (probably stolen by those #$%*s at MYUS.com who repacked and sent it to me. If you've seen some of my other gripes, they've destroyed around 50% of the items I've had them send me, and only paid pennies in compensation. Turds. Anyhoo, I had two perfectly good ones on the crank that was in my old engine, so after a little bit of cleaning, measuring and re-oiling, the crank was sitting in place.
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 3 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
"Why did you need to do that first?" I hear you ask, well, there was some discussion on one of the Kawasaki FB pages about some cranks had shorter rods which were more suited to use with big blocks, depending on what pistons were used, so not knowing what rods I needed for the Arias pistons, I thought a "dry assembly" was in order, just so I could ascertain that the crank I'm now going to use won't launch my pistons thru the head and launch it up my arse. I thought if I could get that monkey off my back, I could move on, and assemble the gearbox, and button it up.
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Of course, before I could slide those big pistons into the cylinder block I realised they needed a clean too. Sitting in my sheltered workshop in 50 deg F weather with my hand in a tub of degreaser isn't my favourite thing, but you gotta do what you gotta do. More scrubbing, until the pistons and block were surgically correct. I'd been worrying about shoving the wrong piston in the wrong cylinder, until I saw that someone had thoughtfully stamped each piston with their location. Nothing worse than sticking your piston in the wrong hole.........
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 5 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 6 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Those pistons were super clean though, the seller said the engine was only fired up once, and I tend to believe him, there was no buildup of goop in the ring lands, no wear marks, no carbon buildup anywhere, etc. The bores still had a nice crosshatch, so I don't think I'll bother honing them again, they look good enough. I assembled the pistons on the rods (easy to do with alloy buttons, as opposed to circlips) and slid them into the bores, with a little WD40 to help them on their way. I purposely assembled it without gaskets so as not to confuse the issue, and turned the crank a few times just to make sure that the tops of the pistons weren't gonna be taller than the deck. Thankfully, they weren't.
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 9 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I took another couple of pics just because it looked so nice. Tomorrow, with luck, I'll tip the gearbox guts into the cases and bolt the bottom end together. Wish me luck! (please, I really need it, I have no idea what I'm doing..........)
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 8 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
1428 engine build 14 Jun 2020 9a by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
