83 KZ1300 Revival

Thought I would make a topic for the carbed KZ.

Step one before anything; is the engine good and will it run.

Step two pull carbs and see the state they are in; Generally this is a varnish lathered mess in my past experiences.

Carbs came out without much fuss; got to hand it to Mr Kawasaki for the split type airbox makes getting them out mostly hassle free.

No manifold rubbers damaged and the air box manifold are still soft and supple.

So I now have the carbs on the operating table, and I can see I am no the first. Classic signs of a Phillips driver being used. I take my No.2 JIS driver and see how tight these screws are; and by god are they. the situation got real. By the end of it I got all the screws out except for 3 which are now flat head screws ...

Looking down the throats of the carbs I am impressed by the site, mostly clean just some dust, Throttle linkage moves quite freely, Choke completed seized. So I expected the worst for the bowls. I cracked the first bowl off no fuss gasket in one piece and below is what I saw.

Oh boy was I amazed, First time I have bought a bike where the previous owner has cared enough when storing there bike to drain the carbs. aside from the dust in the bowl, the floats and needle are clean and freely moving, the idle jets are not blocked, and none of the brass is tarnished!!.

Some other photos I took.

I have cleaned up the choke circuit; it works now .. well it moves; functionality will be proven on startup.

All the diaphragms are not torn and move smoothly in the bores.

Needle valves are confirmed working, next step was to checkout the fuel solenoid.

It had some really old gas in it; Lucky it was still all liquid(had gone red though). some solvent made short work of it. The rubber seals were in good condition ,the valve also moved smoothly.

Ideally gonna go for first startup Tomorrow, them if it looks good, will go for full tear down and rebuild.

So after some cranking with some choke; she fired right up, and sounds good too. Tho that is too a new six owner.

Anyone want me to upload a video of it? would appreciate a second opinion.

Currently just has the 2; 3into1 headers and is very loud; still have the mufflers, but some repairs will be need to be made.

Update.

Currently the bike is in bits, back to the frame all it has are wheels, shocks, bottom half of the airbox and the engine.

Disassembly was mostly painless, but those ignition coils required some finessing, and unfortunately a wire got pulled off the coil; looks like a solder job to fix that.

Status of parts on the bike;
Throttle Cables are serviceable, just needed some lubrication and I had a smooth action, same goes for the cruise control device, seems aftermarket

Front master cylinder: had fluid in it, the bore and piston just need a clean and polish; I have high hopes for them. Diaphragm was disintegrated.

Rear Master Cylinder: had dried up what fluid it did have, and was real, mucky. The Diaphragm was in one piece; but had become soft and stuck to the reservoir. it was damaged beyond use when taking the Cap off. The piston came out with little resistance; but the bore was covered in a red rusty mess, it will need to be lightly honed. The piston will need to be polished, seals look good enough, but that is too be tested. Their is evidence of the rear master leaking down onto the frame. So to be continued ...

Exhaust system is stock and complete; but the collector boxes are rusted out some, and have been cut at the 3-1 to collector box section in the middle. Mufflers are mostly clean, but do have some lose debris inside. I am considering trying to recreate the box or at least rebuild it or something this is a long shot by far.

Wiring harness, has been 'modified' to accept an air horn, and some other connections have been changed to different connection types, and modified. On another note, and I don't know if this was just in Australia, but both bikes have the kill switch removed and the other disconnected. Is this a thing? cause it seems real dangerous to me to not have any kill switch but the key.

Rear shocks are aftermarket 'Koni's' I think. They are not leaking and seem to be working.

Front Forks: Chrome is good, has some oil residue, might be dust in seals or blown seals, which these bikes seem notorious for.

The engine has a manual cam chain tensioner, and has flaking chrome on covers that had chrome, the stator cover is leaking at the grommet. Their is a big oily mess just under the water pump and in that general area; not sure if this is just build up from time, or an active leak, will need investigation. Not sure how this was done but the exhaust flange on the number 4 cylinder facing the cam chain, has been chipped off. All the studs are in good condition, and don't seem bent.

Body components(Tail, fender, tank, side panels) they are all mostly good with some scratches here and their, the tank does have a big chip below the filler to the right near the pin stripes.

Currently the bike is sitting in my shed, waiting for attention.

I am trying to figure out the best way to get that engine out and where to put it once it is out.