When I first bought my Z it had done less than 5000 miles, despite the low mileage it ran like a bag of nails. It was imported into the UK from the USA by a guy from England who tried to get it to run, with little success.
I stripped it down had the frame powder coated then set about the rebuild. With the engines mileage being so low I reckoned (wrongly) it would just need a good service.
The first thing I had to sort out was the wiring, at some time in its life I suspect someone had connected the battery the wrong way round. I had burnt out wires in the loom, burnt wires going into the IC igniter, in fact burnt wires just about every where.
The brake hoses were all perished so they were replaced with braided items; this was one of the easier jobs on the bike. The next task was to get the engine running, and this was where I needed the patience of a saint. The carbs seemed to be a bit “gummed up” so I ordered three rebuild kits, after all, how difficult could it be?
They had been rebuilt at least once before, and the previous owner had obviously taken all the skills he had acquired as a demolition contractor and put them to full use on his mission to get the engine running sweetly.
When he renewed the mixture screws his stroke of genius was to put some kind of epoxy glue into where the blanking plugs had been. Which then made their removal a bit of a challenge to say the least. Setting the carbs up was also a bit of a nightmare, but with the help of the members on this site, a colourtune kit and a set of vacuum gauges I eventually managed to get it to at least tick over.
Rode it to the MOT station and it was running a lot better, still not good, but at least it didn’t cut out. To my surprise it passed the MOT, then just to teach me a bit of humility it cut out twice on the way home.
I guessed it wasn’t getting enough fuel; someone had treated the fuel tank with some kind of sealer. I don’t know why because there is no sign of any corrosion. They had obviously poured this product into the tank then given it a good old shake around then left it to set. This completely blocked the breather in the fuel cap and also partially blocked the fuel tap. When I was cleaning out all this sealer I was surprised the engine ran at all. It’s now about six months since it passed the MOT and it seems to be running really good, in fact it gets better every time I take it out. When I first got it to run it seemed to bog down a bit when I pulled away in first, and it needed quite a high rev and some gentle clutch work to get it to pull away smoothly. One time I was stopped at traffic lights and some power rangers on their crotch rockets pulled up beside me. With much sideways glances and over revving of engines they all screamed away on the green light. Me, I stalled the engine. In my defence it was on a hill, but I still looked like a right plonker.
Strangely this problem has cured itself, and it now pulls away smoothly from just above tickover.
Another problem I had was the clutch lever was really hard to pull in. I renewed the clutch plates and springs, that made a huge difference.
So that’s about it so far (for those who haven’t fallen asleep or died of boredom) it’s still a work in progress, but I would never have got it to this stage without the help of the people on this site. I’m really enjoying riding it and it’s as smooth as silk through traffic, on the open road it pulls like a train. Although I haven’t gone any faster than 100 mph just in case I break something.
Good to hear all turned out good for you mczed and hope you enjoy many more trouble free ride days 
