TOPIC:

I ended up selling my big bore kit with the head on ebay a few weeks ago.

Packaged it all up and shipped it. USPS must have thrown it off the cliff. The buyer sent me photos and every single cylinder has the bottoms of the sleeves smashed off. They are absolutely wrecked.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to insure the parcels so I will be opening up a claim and getting the insurance to the seller.

What is involved in resleeving this? Is this something a typical machine shop can do?

Of all the shitty luck.....

The sleeves can be replaced. They're a wet sleeve with a slight pressed fit. If the cylinder block was placed in an oven at 350 deg.F. and heat soaked for a few hours , then removed, you should be able to knock them out with a tap of a soft faced hammer. once the sleeves are out, clean the oring grooves and ensure there's no burrs on the block, install the new orings, place the cylinder back in the oven and heat to 350 Deg F. and then once heat soaked, , take the cylinder out of the oven and set it up on a set of blocks so that the sleeves are free to drop in, then insert the sleeves and ensure they bottom out the top flange to the block. Send the block in to a machine shop and have them lick off the top of the block to ensure a single solid surface. Done.
Now someone is going to ask "Why put the orings in the block before heating? "First, you don't have a lot of time to drop in 6 sleeves before the block is too cool to be able to drop in the sleeves. Second, the orings are silicone based and can take up to 500 deg.F before failing.
Could this job be done on an arbor press? Possibly, but you take the chance of cracking the block. Also remember that the sleeve has probably been in the block for the past 30 odd years and some aluminum oxide will have built up near the oring seals and cause some grief getting the sleeves out.
I have heard that if a cylinder block was left sitting on the bench right side up, that sleeves would push themselves out of the block. I suspect that was a poor fitment. Normally wet sleeves are in with an interferrence fit of around .001" - .0015" per inch of bore diameter. so for the KZ1300 cylinders I would expect about .003" - .004" interferrence fit. When the cylinder block get put in the oven the aluminum expands more than the cast iron sleeve (coeffecient of linear expansion) and that's why the machine shop practice is to heat up the block. Many have tried to drive the sleeves out of a cold cylinder block with a wooden block and a mallet and resulted in breaking off the thin bottom end of the sleeve.

Thanks Kawboy.

Where does one get the replacement sleeves?

you can always drop the sleeves into the freezer to chill as well you dont have to freeze!
this is a common exercise when fitting bearings into blind holes in various casings
should always try to make sure what ever heating /cooling process you use Do it evenly
Dion

Ledkz1300 wrote: Thanks Kawboy.

Where does one get the replacement sleeves?

I would get in touch with L.A. Sleeve. www.lasleeve.com/ or Advanced Sleeve www.advancedsleeve.com/index.html Both are capable of producing custom sleeves. Possibly one of these has in their historical data, a drawing of the sleeve for the KZ1300.

Thanks again for that info.

I've really taken a beating on this deal. Because they were sold through Ebay and damaged in transit it is still my responsibility so the buyer is now returning the smashed cylinder block to me at my expense and I'll have to deal with it. This will be the end of me ever selling a anything off ebay again. There is just too much risk and zero protection for the seller in these cases. For all I know the buyer dropped the block on the concrete after he opened the package but I still have to pay for the mistake.

I'm scratching my head as to how they were smashed. They were wrapped in layers of bubble wrap, with layers of foam underneath and still they somehow managed to break pieces off the thin end of all the sleeves. Are they really that brittle?