Well all Covid-19 incompetence aside, today has been a great day. The thing about any build, is that it's like "Fire and Movement" (a military term) you just need to keep moving forward. I've lived by this mantra, that (not just bike builds) life itself is like fire and movement, you just need to keep moving forward. For me, words to live by.
The weather here is just getting better every day. I had the heater off by 11 am, and by 12, decided to sneak outside and do some bike stuff while on my "lunch break". I had a can of really good (as opposed to really sh1t) paint stripper arrive at lunch time, and was able to very quickly remove the paint from the starter motor cover and cam cover. Surprisingly, the alloy cam cover with heaps of corrosion and not much original paint was a lot harder to strip than the steel starter motor cover, so I had to keep wetting it with stripper, and use a little copper wire "toothbrush" to remove the bulk of the paint, then several applications with my "Face Breaker" wire wheel attachment on my pedestal grinder, followed by several wire wheel attachments on my dad's old dremel tool to get rid of the fluffy white corrosion. Dad's dremel is a real basic unit, not variable speed, so it turns most of the brushes inside out, which is a pain in the arse. I think I'll buy another Chinese knockoff with variable speeds, just so I can slow it down a bit.
Anyhoo, I cleaned the cam cover right back to bare aluminium, then etch primed it and then hit it up with some satin black engine enamel, baked it in my industrial oven @ 100 Deg C for an hour, and was happy.
GPZ1100 20 Oct 2020 3 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Now like any bike with a wet clutch, after sitting for a long time, the clutch tends to weld itself together, so just like on the F2, I popped the clutch cover off, which was no mean feat, as Mr Silicon hadn't actually opened up the cam cover, so the original gasket was well and truly glued into place. Once again, I pulled every plate out, degreased it, then oiled each plate and reassembled it. Something I didn't think too hard about was that the gasket for a Z1/KZ1000 is totally different until I compared the gasket to the hole.
GPZ1100 20 Oct 2020 1 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Bugger, where did I leave that "Weeties" box? I've ordered a new one, but if it's not here by the weekend, I will be making my own.
Oh well, at least the alternator cover gasket hasn't changed.
GPZ1100 20 Oct 2020 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
The starter motor cover came up good enough with some Rustoleum satin black, cheap and cheerful, like me.
GPZ1100 20 Oct 2020 5 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I'd never checked the engine number until now, to determine which model GPZ1100 engine I have. I assumed mine was the first (1981/82) model (108 BHP) but was happy to discover that it's actually the 1983 model. (120 BHP) I'm pretty happy with that, in a bike that originally had 83 BHP. Should be a fun ride!
GPZ1100 20 Oct 2020 4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr