Kawboy's restoration/conversion of a 1980 KZ13

Bit the bullet today and bought a set of chains off of EBay and they are now on their way to Belmont North Carolina to Ramsey Chain for their engineers to size up. Hopefully they can reproduce the chain and if so, we have a new supplier for our primary and secondary chains, Made in America no less!!

Fingers crossed. I've been researching this topic for almost 3 months now and I hope that it pays off. As I previously mentioned, Ramsey refused to "just make me the chains" They insisted on having their engineers size up the existing chain before custom making me chains. Any company that goes to that extreme to make it right, gets my vote. If they are capable of producing the chains, it will be interesting to see how well they hold up compared to the original equipment manufacturers chain. The technology has advanced in the last 35 years. The only thing that comes to mind is that up until this point, the chain has been the sacrificial anode and that probably saved the gears on the crank and secondary shaft. If the chain is now tougher, then the gears may end up being the sacrificial anode. And now you get a glimpse of "Engineering Change Control" It's one thing to make a change thinking you're now going to experience better longevity but you may have compromised another part in so doing. Well, we'll see where this goes.

Kawboy wrote: Bit the bullet today and bought a set of chains off of EBay and they are now on their way to Belmont North Carolina to Ramsey Chain for their engineers to size up. Hopefully they can reproduce the chain and if so, we have a new supplier for our primary and secondary chains, Made in America no less!!

Fingers crossed. I've been researching this topic for almost 3 months now and I hope that it pays off. As I previously mentioned, Ramsey refused to "just make me the chains" They insisted on having their engineers size up the existing chain before custom making me chains. Any company that goes to that extreme to make it right, gets my vote. If they are capable of producing the chains, it will be interesting to see how well they hold up compared to the original equipment manufacturers chain. The technology has advanced in the last 35 years. The only thing that comes to mind is that up until this point, the chain has been the sacrificial anode and that probably saved the gears on the crank and secondary shaft. If the chain is now tougher, then the gears may end up being the sacrificial anode. And now you get a glimpse of "Engineering Change Control" It's one thing to make a change thinking you're now going to experience better longevity but you may have compromised another part in so doing. Well, we'll see where this goes.

I have the chains out of my 79 that I am willing to lend to the cause as long as I get them back someday... or maybe new replacements . I really have no idea whether to what degree they are worn since my mechanic didn't bother to actually check them. Since the bearings are worn I can only assume they are somewhat stretched.

I can throw them in a box and ship them to you which would save you the hassle of breaking down your engine until you are sure they can build them.

Thanks for the offer LEDKZ1300 but as I posted, I bought a set of both primary and secondary chains from an EBayer in North Carolina for $39 U.S. and free shipping. They're sending the chains over to Ramsey for sizing up. I figured it would cost me at least $35 Canadian to ship chains from here so what the hell, buy from down there and ship over.






Got to say, in all of my years buying parts for the ol' girl on EBay, I've never once been screwed over on a purchase.

I figured you had it handled but if something screws up mine are available as a backup plan. I would have just given them to you but if there are no future replacements coming, my engine would be useless without something to put back inside, stretched or not... if it ever comes to that. Hopefully this low mileage engine from Detroit solves that for me.

I'm spitting bullets today. I ordered a set of primary secondary chains off of Ebay and provided the shipping instructions as provided by my local area rep for Ramsey Chains. Checked the tracking info on the package to see if they had made it to Ramsey and the tracking info stated" Undeliverable, no longer at this address" Called the area rep and discussed only to find out the fool gave me the wrong address AND phone number for the plant and he only figured it out by looking up the address on the internet. JACK ASS !!! So the chains are somewhere between Charlotte North Carolina and Wilksboro North Carolina.
Now the interesting part. Knowing that USPS will be returning the chains to the sender (Ebay member) I tried to contact the Ebay member and have him resend the chains AT MY COST to the right address. EBay is blocking my Ebay mail from reaching the sender because their mail system thinks I'm trying to buy an item outside of the Ebay system from the seller. Try to contact the seller without providing an email, phone number or shipping information. What a cock around. I finally got a message to him to call me at my phone number by putting all of the digits of the phone number together so it appears as one 9 digit number. That way the Ebay mail system doesn't recognize it as a phone number.

What kind of an area rep doesn't know where the plant is that ships him product. How much do I want to bet he uses a Roledex for his address/phone numbers. Antiquated jerk !!

One forgets just how dumb some people are and I bet he is allowed to vote