Update to My Toy

So it’s been a week or so since I updated any progress on my bike.  That’s mostly due to the fact that it’s been a week or so since I’ve looked at the thing, let alone touched it!  I managed to wrestle the tire off with some tire spoons in the backyard, and mounted the new one onto the rim.  You’ll notice I have yet to seat the bead.  (No air compressor at my house.)

I got a chance to finally go through the carbs as well, and the jets were all kinds of dirty.  I have had a problem with the floats not all being the same, and carb one had been overflowing.  I also took the time to bench synchronize them. (Making the slides all the same, so that they are all even throughout the throttle run.  Only carb one was off from the rest.)

After the carbs were run through, I took to the valve cover gasket and tachometer drive block-off.  My tachometer drive had been leaking pretty badly last year.  The 1980 motor in the bike had a mechanical drive, while the body is a 1981, so it had an electrically driven tachometer.  You can see how bad it was leaking.  The new billet piece looks amazingly better!

And some photos of the valve cover gasket changeover.  After reading many, many online opinions about dry vs. wet installation, I chose a dry installation with a dab of gasket maker over the rubber cam end plugs.

I had thought I could get away at first with leaving the vacuum ports on top of the valve cover, but it wouldn’t clear the timing chain, so I ended up having to remove them.  Torqued everything back down and hopefully we’ll be done with this area for a year or so.  (Well at least until the valves start getting too slappy!)  I now have to replace vacuum lines and fuel lines, and hopefully she’ll run again!

My Toy

So I know I normally only post on the beer side of this blog, but it’s that time of year again when things seem to start falling apart.  From digging my motorcycle out of my father’s barn, to fixing the wife’s car as it ages, things just seem to come at you all at once when they come.

I’ve owned a few motorcycles since I was 17 and decided I needed to fuel my “rebel” spirit with the purchase of one of these beasts.  I started off by buying a 1982 Yamaha XS400 twin.  It was a great little bike and I still regret selling it to this day.  The second bike was a fully dressed 1978 Suzuki GS1000, that inevitably went down in a haze of electrical problems.  The third bike I purchased in 2010 and it was a total impulse buy.  I had just sold my sole means of transportation and used the cash to buy a 1981 Kawasaki KZ1000.  For three of the rainiest weeks of my life it was my my only means of transportation.  Not the brightest idea I have ever come up with before!

The bike was in running condition and that’s exactly what I did to it, hard!  The year ended needing a new front tire.  The next year, (2011)  I was having difficulty on longer rides with the vibration coming through at cruising RPM’s.  I had also found out that sometime in this things’ life the original motor had been removed and replaced with a 1980 motor.  While doing routine maintenance I realized the sprockets and chain were totally shot, so I figured I’d remedy the vibration at the same time as replacing parts.  This bike was running a 15/39 tooth combination, which judging from online forums is a pretty standard middle of the road performance combination.  With no 6th gear that combo was just to short for my liking, so I went to a 16/37 tooth combo.  It leaves the stop sign a bit slower now, but the engine’s buzz isn’t as annoying at 65 as it was before.  Oh, and take a gander at the old front sprocket (2nd photo below) as I’m not really positive how the chain stayed on that!

In addition to the tire, chain, and sprockets, I also did the standard oil change and air filter.  The air filter that was in there looked almost original!  I then attempted to run through the carbs.  Without a manual for adjusting anything.  And messed up the floats in the process.  I parked the bike and vowed to tackle it this year.  I picked up a new rear tire, valve cover gaskets, a little tach block off piece, downloaded a service manual on my IPOD and ripped the old bike down last night.

The old girl has some pretty nice features already installed, including those Accel coils and wires, a decent exhaust with no holes, the chrome is all really decent, and the previous owner had it painted and the seat replaced about a year before I got it.

I will update on the progress over the next couple of weeks.  And I’ll also attempt not to screw up the carbs this time around. (Hopefully armed with an actual manual, this won’t be such an issue!)

And as a side note, I realize my yard looks a bit, um, on the redneck side.  But what did you really expect from someone that has a blog about this kind of stuff anyway?  Enjoy!