1980 KZ1300 - Bad Day at the Office

[robin1731]

Did you put any sealant at that area before you installed the cover? Above and below the gasket? And about 1/4" on either side of the rubber plug. That is a must on KZ's.

[Lucien Harpress]

Bottom of the rubber plugs, yes. Top of the plugs, maybe. Anywhere else? No.

Strange thing is that it looks like it's almost leaking above the gasket, between the gasket and the valve cover. Could just be the oil wicking up, though. Eh. I'll peel it apart and get some more sealant on it. I still have nearly an entire tube left.

[robin1731]

Bottom of the rubber plugs, yes. Top of the plugs, maybe. Anywhere else? No.

Strange thing is that it looks like it's almost leaking above the gasket, between the gasket and the valve cover. Could just be the oil wicking up, though. Eh. I'll peel it apart and get some more sealant on it. I still have nearly an entire tube left.

Yes, needs it both under the gasket and on top.

[Lucien Harpress]

Ugh. Had a short day at work, so I figured I'd dig into this bike a bit.

Good news: My fuel solenoid is finally routed into my fuel lines, and it works just fine (mostly- ideally, it should only open (with the bike off) when the ignition is on, the kill switch is set to run, and the clutch is pulled in. Then, once the motor is started, the stator should continue to keep it open, even when I release the clutch lever. Problem is, the second half never happens- you have to have the clutch pulled in to keep the solenoid open, no matter what. So, the clutch lockout switch is getting bypassed. Never made much sense to me anyway.)

Bad news- popped the valve cover off and tried to seal up the cam plugs. UNFORTUNATELY, I managed to tear the gasket, and because I think I didn't clean the mating surfaces well enough first, I'm fairly certain the plugs now leak worse than they did before.

Feh.

Taking a step back, saving my money, getting a new valve cover gasket, and trying again when it isn't so blasted hot.

[Lucien Harpress]

Valve cover gasket arrived in the mail today. The weather is supposed to cool off here pretty soon, so I'm waiting until then before attempting to fix my leaks again. Having to remove the coils (along with the 30 bolts holding on the cover itself) makes this a bigger pain than it probably should be.

I also pulled the spark plugs last time I had the gas tank off, just to see what they looked like- apart from one (which was JUST starting to brown up), nearly off of them were rather sooty- so this bike is running rather rich. I'll see if I can bring it down with the idle mix screws (because it IS close), but if not I may have to drop the float level a bit. It seemed within spec, but was at the high end of the scale.

I just hope this thing is easier to tune than a Goldwing......

[robin1731]

Did you have the same plugs in from the time you firs started the bike and got it going? A lot of idling? More time on the choke than running down the road? A new set of plugs could maybe fix it.

On 900's and 1000's you need to get them off of the choke pretty quick. They will carbon up the plugs fairly soon. Yours may be the same way.

[desertrefugee]

Having owned two ZL900s for a total of about 7 years combined, I sure can agree with this. They don't need a lot of choke time. Bet there's nothing wrong with it a little road time won't cure.

If not, before dinking with the carbs, I'd verify plug gap, coil primary voltage, timing, air filter and choke function (opening fully).

[Lucien Harpress]

Brand new plugs (but the same since the end of the rebuild, about 200 miles on them). They were also pulled pretty quick after a ride, so not a lot of time on idle, either. I actually don't need to choke it that much at all, which is what's leaning me toward thinking it's running rich. Full choke right away actually kicks the revvs fairly high (5-6K), so I end up feathering it to keep the engine at about 3-4000. Even then, choke is off in less than a minute, and never on when I get it going down the road.

Static timing is as close as I can get it. I have a timing light, so I'll check that once I replace the valve cover gasket. I could gap the plugs I suppose, and again, the carbs aren't synced yet either.

[Lucien Harpress]

Ugh. Decided to take the Kiwi out of a bit of a spin, see if I managed to glue the valve cover down this time. Did about 30-40 miles, round trip, with no issues. No leaks either. Get it home, decide to get some air in the front shocks (as they were REAL spongy). Fill 'em up, take off down the road-

About a mile in, I'm cranking on it pretty decent (what? It's a six cylinder!), and suddenly, it starts shuddering pretty bad. Almost like I'm running low on fuel (full tank), but worse. Slow down, it stops. Speed up, it happens again. Next thing I know, everything is dead. I coast to the side of the road, check the fuse box- sure enough, main 30 amp fuse is blown. Replace it with a spare, turn the bike around, take off- same thing starts happening. Under 4K, no problem. Above, starts shuddering and jerking. I limp it back home, park it in the driveway, run it up to about 6 or 7K RPM (bet the neighbors loved that)- no issues.

(sigh)

First thing I want to check is the wiring to the ignition coils. To say it's a mess is an understatement- the PO swapped coils, from bullet connectors to (crimp-on) spade terminals. The wires are pretty exposed on some of them, and there are still at least two wire nuts in that mess. I can only think that one of them is grounding out on the frame somehow, and the stiffer suspension combined with Michigan roads was enough to jolt it into contact.

Feh. I don't know. I'm going to bed. I'll poke at it tomorrow. Sit down with iron and have a soldering party.

[calif wingnut]

Just came across this vintage picture back in the day ~:<)

[Gowing]

It sounds like you just need to staighten out your wiring a bit and that will cure
the fuse blowing. Glad you could get her home. I've been there and it's certainly no
fun pushing our big bikes any distance at all.

[Lucien Harpress]

Found out it was a coil input wire grounding out on the frame. A new set of terminals for all, and I'm all set!

Right before the weather turned crap I was working on getting it tuned up 100%. I'm fairly certain that all the idle mix screws are too far out, because she is running really rich. I also managed to jack up the carb sync (somehow), so now the idle is all over the place.

I actually set up a time to ride it down to Robin's place, but a quarter of the way there my speedometer starting acting up really bad. Erring on the side of caution I limped home and put it up for the day. I think I need to oil the speedometer internals a bit- I'm hoping that will clear up the problem. I still have to tune it as well (which sucks, because you have to pull the fuel tank for every adjustment), and I have a VERY small oil leak out of my water pump. I have everything to fix it, but it hasn't been worth tearing apart to do so yet.

Eh. Nothing I have is heated, so all of this will probably have to wait until Spring.

Loving the photos too, calif wingnut. Reminds me how glad I am I ditched my fairing.

[Lucien Harpress]

Had a bit of fun this afternoon. Temps managed to tease the mid-50s, so I decided to take my two road-worthy bikes (the GL1000 and KZ1300) out for a spin. While my yellow 'wing performed wonderfully, I found an interesting new wrinkle to my Kiwi adventure.

Not only is my speedometer still sound like crap (need to crack it open and oil it), now it's only firing on 5 cylinders. Again. It's missing on cylinder 3. AGAIN.

(sigh)

It's getting fuel, because it occasionally pops out the left exhaust, and cylinders 1 and 2 are fine. I'm assuming it's getting spark, because the linked cylinder (5) works too. That leaves compression, which would be... bad.

I'm hoping it's just a fouled plug. Something simple. What I need is a small test fuel tank, so I can play with these settings without having to pop the gas tank on and off every time I want to check things.

Never a dull moment, right?

[Barney T Weasel]

As the updated title indicates, I'm calling a wrap-up of this little (ha!) project thread. Oh, I still have some minor issues- got some funky idle-mix issues going on, and of the three cutoff valves it sounds like none of them work, and I still have to get the fuel line routing figured out, but you know what?

None of that matters right now. I've got an awesome bike, in once piece. All the fluids stay inside, at all speeds and temperatures. It's also plated, has nearly 100 miles under my butt, has killer performance, and is an awesome piece of history as well.



I decided to ride up north a bit, annoy all the lake trash- er..... lake PEOPLE with a bit of 1980's noise pollution. Dodging thunderstorms the whole way, I think it was an excellent way to cap things off.









Big shout-out to everybody who helped me on this little adventure, all the way from getting it to Michigan from Idaho, to walking me through my very first engine rebuild (you know who you are). This is a bike that came from Idaho, has half a motor from Maryland, and finally found a home in Michigan. Kind of cool, when you think about it.

I still got stuff to pick at, and I'll probably pop back in with updates on the Kiwi from time to time, but for now, I'll let everyone get back to the regularly scheduled Goldwings.

As for me? I'll probably take it easy and try to remember what NOT spending money feels like.

[calif wingnut]

Slick 1300 cafe http://denver.craigslist.org/mcy/5384934499.html