Tag: Zed

The Wayback Machine: Welcome to the Show

By Joe Gresh

I’ve been so busy with home-nesting projects my motorcycles have succumbed to time’s crumbling embrace. I parked the ZRX1100 Kawasaki after the carburetors clogged up and it began running on three cylinders. Since it has been sitting a few years naturally the brake pistons seized. Followed by fluid leaking out of the calipers. Followed by me robbing the battery to start the generator that powers the nest. In any event, it needed tires, a chain and sprockets and the throttle cable repaired. So the big green Eddie Lawson lookalike has suffered the indignity of being dragged across the countryside on a two-hundred-dollar Harbor Freight trailer.

Even worse, the mini bike my pops built for me when I was a wee lad is on the injured reserve list. Forty-eight years idle, Mini has untold issues although the Briggs and Stratton engine still turns over. I’ve lost a few critical, hand-made parts and since the Old Man has shuffled off I’ll have to re-make the stuff myself. It’s not easy handling such a precious thing. The mini is lousy with my father’s engineering and artistic skills. The welds and frame geometry are a direct, tangible link to happy times working together in the garage.

The 1965 Honda 50cc went under water in one of Florida’s many hurricanes so I took it apart and threw everything into boxes and plastic tubs. It’s been apart so long the tubs have crystalized into the finest, most fragile parts bins in existence. The slightest touch turns them to dust. Dry, chalky plastic oxide mingles with 4mm JIC screws and yellowed wings. The sheet-metal swing arm rusted completely in half so I’ll have to rig something in aluminum to secure the rear wheel to the frame and lower shock eyes. I do have a good engine for the Honda: a fire breathing 140cc Lifan clone that clears the front fender by a quarter-inch.

The newest dead-bike I own is a Husqvarna. On the last, long-ish motorcycle ride I took to Big Bend Park way down in south Texas the Husqvarna SMR510 lost its clutch release. Bit by bit, little by little the clutch action faded away until finally pulling the clutch lever had no effect on events. The headlight also broke off but on a dirt bike that’s hardly worth mentioning. We were doing some trail riding down there and the Husky did ok shifting motocross style. Starting out was the main problem as you had to push the thing, jump on, and pop it into first. The bike would either stall or roar off on a wheelie. On the ride home I would circle the backfield waiting for traffic lights to change. Sorry, everyone in El Paso.

At least the Z1 Kawasaki never ran for me. I bought it from the owner of the property we now live on. I had to get it out of there because things were disappearing and I felt someone was going to pilfer the Z before I could. The Z needs all sorts of stuff but I get the feeling this bike will be a keeper. The lines are so clean and simple compared to modern bikes. It sits damn near perfect, doesn’t feel heavy and I know from following David Howell through the Everglades, Z’s do well in the dirt.

Which leaves us with the only motorcycle I own that works: a 360cc, 1971 Yamaha RT1B. Fondly known as Godzilla to dirt riders far and wide, the old Yamaha just keeps popping along. Analog everything, smoky, noisy, sweating petroleum from every pore, this is the bike that will not die. Even with me maintaining it.

Everything around us is constantly falling apart. Even the Great Pyramid in Egypt will be a sand dune one day. I just hope that when it finally falls to the ground replacement parts will still be available on Ebay.

Help us keep the lights on…please click on the popup ads!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 16

The Rustoration of Zed, my 1975 Kawasaki Z1 900, has once again hove into view. After several months of pouring concrete in Bay 2 of the big metal shed then building a retaining wall to level the back yard and pouring a side patio to slow erosion, the time has come to push Zed a little further down the road.

I left Zed somewhat assembled as far as the running gear was concerned. Today we will tackle adjusting the eight valves. You really can’t get an easier engine to work on than the Z1. After measuring the valve gaps and determining which valves need attention (four in my case), the first things you’ll need are a few old 29mm shims to stand in for the shims you are about to remove. These placeholders keep the cam from contacting the valves in an unfriendly way when the engine is rotated to access other valves. I don’t have any extra 29mm shims so I cut some out of a 1/16 bit of aluminum flat stock. These temporary shims can be a much looser fit (thus easier to remove), as you will not be running the engine with them installed.

I bought the correct Kawasaki brand valve shim remover tool online for around $40. There are other style shim tools but this one works well enough and leaves both hands free for the fiddly task of extracting the shim from its holder. I had to grind a little clearance into the tool where it straddles the cast-in tool boss on the Kawasaki’s cylinder head. The tool boss castings were slightly different thicknesses so after grinding it to fit the largest one I had to shim it with a plastic tie-wrap on the smaller castings.

Now that you have measured all the valve clearances and removed the shims on the out-of-spec valves it’s time to play shuffle-shim. The shims are marked in millimeters and if the last guy who set the valves was not an asshole the markings will be readable on the side facing away from the cam. It’s a good idea to measure the shims with a micrometer but I don’t have a metric micrometer and it’s too much math to convert from inches. With my clearances I was able to relocate two shims leaving only two valves to go.

Holiday Cycles is our local Old School cycle shop. There are no dealerships; Holiday is an independent, pan-brand shop. The place looks like its been in business since 1939. I love it. You can see by the credit card sign that these guys don’t put up with bullshit. Holiday Cycles had one of the shims I needed and swapped me for mine. I’m not sure how they are going to make any money like that but I’m cheap so it really tugged at my heartstrings.

Next I went to Dave at the local Kawasaki dealership. Dave had shims but the Z1 is so old the shims were in his storage shed. I had to wait a day to pick up the next shim. I installed the new shims but the 3.00 mm one was too tight. That valve had a 2.95 shim and the gap was at .013 so I couldn’t understand why the 3.00 didn’t bring it down to .008. This is where measuring the shims comes into play. Dave told me that shims can vary a couple thousandths. Add in a bit of wear and it’s a crapshoot as to which replacement shim to get.

Trial and error has been my normal MO since forever so I ordered another 2.95 from Dave except he doesn’t want to go back to the storage unit right now so I am waiting on a call back. Once I get the valves set I’ll run the engine again to flush the carbs with fresh gasoline. Then I can get to work on the gauges and headlight area and try out the new electrical system. I really want to ride this bike before I die.

Read Parts 1 through 15 of the Zed’s Not Dead series!

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 15

Zed’s forward progress has come to a temporary halt. Not due to any complications on the Kawasaki’s part, although the project has exceeded my initial estimate by double and I’m not done yet. No, Pitiful Man has to strike a balance between work and play. He must strive to appease the gods and their fickle ways while angering none. It’s a fine line we walk and sometimes we have to dance atop a vibrating string.

A quick trip to Florida was in order as the Love Shack, our singlewide trailer in the Ocala Forest, was showing signs of neglect. CT and I freshened the grey floor paint and installed new back porch pavers, eliminating the sad little stoop that had served us poorly for 14 years. While we were at it some new window shades, new screen doors and a lick of paint on the Lido Deck were in the cards. Another project I started 14 years ago, installing sliding closet doors, was finally brought to a conclusion. When we were finished the place looked like a hundred bucks.

Back at Tinfiny Ranch in New Mexico another, larger project had to be tackled: a twenty-foot by thirty-foot concrete floor in the tin shed. I’ve decided to tackle the shed floor in stages, like the International Six Days Trial. Stage one will be Bay Number 1 (a little confusing because an additional bay, Bay Zero, was added to the shed after the other three bays had been named). This stage consists of 16 individually poured slabs of which I have 9 complete as of this writing. After the slabs are in place a shear wall will be built to add strength to the flimsy metal shed and also divide the space into a Bay 2 and 3 dirt floor, rat-accessible side, and a Bay 1 concrete, non-rat accessible side.

Those faithful Zed’s Not Dead readers that have not deserted me will recall Part One where I describe Zed’s crooked path back and home. After we bought Tinfiny Ranch I discovered a trove of paperwork from Zed’s previous owner. Several motorcycle magazines from the era featuring Zed were in a box along with a possible explanation for the Zed’s wiring issues described elsewhere in this series.

This letter dated August 3rd 1994 from Ken Rogers representing Dyna III ignitions (I’m guessing not the singer) explains to the previous owner how they have thoroughly tested the electronic ignition he sent back and have proclaimed it fit as a fiddle. Zed’s burned-up wiring harness may have been due to a faulty Dyna ignition installation. This would also account for the wiring to the coils being cut as those short bits were spliced into the Dyna module. I never found any of the Dyna stuff in my initial clean up but I haven’t gone through all the old guy’s junk.

Along with the Dyna stuff there was a lot of Yoshimura brochures and price lists. After seeing the damage to the wiring harness on Zed I’m torn between hoping my bike has some nice performance parts installed and fearing that my bike has some nice performance parts installed. I should be able to measure the cams to see if they have additional lift but I’m not sure how to check displacement without winning an AMA national road race. I suspect the Yoshi stuff was bench dreaming because the bike runs too well to be hot rodded.

Finally here’s a nice photo from Dale-Starr of David Aldana winning the Daytona superbike race with a half-lap lead over the guy in second place. Apparently this caused protests that required Aldana’s bike to be disassembled twice! The bike was found legal and Aldana’s win stood. I met Aldana at Barberville one year. I was so excited to meet him I started doing the “We’re not worthy!” Wayne’s World bowing thing and Aldena told me to knock it off.

While no real work has been done to Zed in Part 15 I’ve enjoyed digging through Zed’s past. Reading the old magazine reviews reinforces just how spectacular the Kawasaki Z1 900 was when it came out in 1973.  And how spectacular a motorcycle it still is.

Want to catch the rest of the Zed story?   Hey, just click right here!

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 4

I got tired of cleaning carburetors. The chemicals, the gunk, soaking and prodding with tiny wires, it’s flat wore me down, down, down, man. I left the worst parts to soak for a while and drifted off to try and remove a broken screw on the right side intake port. Starting with a near-center center punch I figured to drill the thing out and maybe get a remover deal to grab the threaded bit stuck in the head.

I drilled the screw in stages until I could try my handy-dandy left-hand drill/remover tool.

The broken screw is small, like a 4mm, maybe a 6mm and there’s not a lot of room for error. The little extractor tool had a good bite into the screw but the thing would not budge. One thing you don’t want to do is break off an easy out because they are super hard material. There’s no drilling the things and you are well and truly screwed if you manage to get the hole full of busted tool steel. I eased off. Sometimes you make more progress doing nothing rather than doing the wrong thing.

Admitting defeat today I decided to step away from the cylinder head and give the hole a few more days soaking with penetrating oil now that I can get to the backside of the situation. In addition to soaking I’ll heat-cycle the aluminum with a 1500-watt heat gun in the hopes of disrupting the steel screw/aluminum head interface. I guess the worse case would be to drill the thing all the way out and use a thread repair insert but I really don’t want to do that. That would be true hackery.

On a happier note the order from Z1 Enterprises showed up! I thought $39 for this right side throttle/switch was more than reasonable. The thing looks like factory (I assume as Zed was missing this part) complete with a cryptic Off-PO-On switch that will reveal its purpose once I get the beast powered up.

A complete Z1 Enterprises wiring harness (4 looms total) for $139 looks very nice and will eliminate chasing electrical issues with the madly cut and melted harness that came on the bike. Fresh multi pin plugs and wiring colors that match the original will make rigging the thing easy as pie. The purists or 100-point fanatics will probably bitch that the clear insulator over the connections is not the exact same shade as the 1975 original. Take my advice, those 100-point guys are obsessive-compulsive jerks and you don’t want to hang around them. In this photo the old harness is the one with blue tape indicating what connects to that point.

Included in the order was an O-ring for the re-sized drain plug and the washer that goes between the oil filter and the oil filter spring. With these parts I managed to get the bottom of the engine buttoned up. Progress has been fitful but Zed is getting closer. I’m really jonesing for concrete so I may have to pull off Zed and pour a yard to keep my soul on ice.

One more thing…if you’d like a handy index to all of the Zed’s Not Dead articles, we’ve started an index for this and future resurrections.  You can get to it here, or from the links on any ExhaustNotes.us page.