Gaskets

I've been reading about gaskets (head gasket, now cylinder sleeve o-rings, water pump, etc. are my immediate interests as this is what I had to take apart). I must say the solutions are confusing. Personally, I would go for pretty much everything OEM. BUT OEM are very expensive! On the other hand, I can't imagine an o-ring made now would have worse quality than 30 years ago if the size is right. Different people say this aftermarket is good and worked for them, then other say the opposite.

So... Id there a gasket set that has it all and is good? It's such a pain in the butt looking for bits and pieces and in many cases, the shipping is a real deal killer.

Assuming you are buying the OEM from eBay, yes it will be expensive + Shipping. Try getting the part numbers for what you are looking for from a site like cmsnl.com. then emailing a Kawasaki dealer asking them how much they cost, you might be surprised that a part on eBay going for 40$ + 10 shipping is around 10 dollars from the dealer, even better if you have a mate at the dealer who can offer you Mechanics rates.

If you are already going to a dealer and the part you are looking for is still really expensive, try just getting the real pain in the ass parts OEM. Like a Head Gasket from example, then go aftermarket on parts like a valve gasket cover for example, as it is easy to replace in the worst case, plus its hard to screw it up when its made.

As for O-rings Kawasaki has a lot of parts bins and the O-ring you would be getting in certain cases would be new. As long as you are 100% sure of the size of the O-ring and the quality it should be fine, but I have found that sometimes custom sizes are used that are hard to find.

Best of Luck hope this helps.

Cometic in the U.S.A. can make you a custom head gasket and this is especially imortant if you've gone to the 64mm bore. "Tyler" one of our members had this done a couple of years ago and great sucess. Cost was $75 + shipping I believe.
O-rings- when you know the inside diameter and the outside diameter and allow 15% crush, you can go to a number of oring suppliers and get exactly what you want. Buna - N Nitrile for water systems. Silicone for high temp and Viton 75 for all things fuel. Here's a link as an example for orings. www.oringsusa.com/

Most of the gaskets / 'O' rings in a pattern gasket set are fine to use, the only one I would not use is the cylinder head gasket. Pattern gasket makers are unable to replicate the silicone seals around the water ways on the 1300 head gasket & leaks seem to be commonplace with them. Yes, the genuine cylinder head gasket is expensive, but you only want to have to do the job once The other thing I would only ever buy genuine is the water pump mechanical seal; again that is available pattern (and not much cheaper) -the pattern ones have been known to fail prematurely also.

Thank you all for the info and suggestions!