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<\/p>\nWith only two full-time writers here at ExhaustNotes.us, it\u2019s a real challenge to churn out the quantity of content a website demands. Luckily we have Joe Berk on staff. One Berk equals like seven normal writers. Coming up with topics is easy but some of the ideas don\u2019t rise to the level of an actual ExhaustNotes.us story. I\u2019ve swept the floor at the luxurious ExhaustNotes.us office plaza and tossed all the bits into this blog post.<\/p>\n
Reaching in through the bottom of the chicken we find that the 1975 Kawasaki Zed has been having a few problems as of late. The far right-side carburetor was spewing gasoline sporadically so I purchased 4, generic carb repair kits online. I really only needed the float needle and seat but at $14 a kit it was cheaper to buy the whole shebang rather than just the seats.<\/p>\n
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The carburetors sit relatively high off the crankcase on a Kawasaki Z1 so most carb circuits can be accessed from the bottom or top without removing the whole bank of 4 carbs. You can get to the idle jet, the main jet, the needle and seat and even the slide needle and emulsion tube if you\u2019re willing to struggle a bit. When I say access theses parts I don\u2019t mean to imply that it\u2019s easy to do. I have the cuts on my hands to show for it.<\/p>\n
After 3000 miles of running I was surprised by the lack of debris in the Kawasaki\u2019s float bowls. If you followed Zed\u2019s resurrection you\u2019ll know how rusty Zed\u2019s tank was. I expected the main-jet sump to be full of fine red dust. Installing the new needles and seats was a fiddly job but I managed to get them in and replaced the pilot jets just because I had them. I left the original main jets in place.<\/p>\n
Before turning on the fuel I checked the fuel filter on the petcock and found it clean. I bought new inline filters but seeing how clean everything was I left the old inline filters alone. Don\u2019t fix it if it isn\u2019t broken is a good motto to live by with aging motorcycles.<\/p>\n
As soon as I turned the petcock on fuel started pouring out of Carb Number 3 (from the ignition side). Of course this is the hardest one to work on. I pulled the float bowl back off and removed the float and the needle. Everything looked ok. Figuring a piece of dirt must be in there I blew carb cleaner into the seat and reassembled the carb. Back together with the petcock on, the fuel leaked as bad as it ever did.<\/p>\n
I took the float bowl back off and removed the float. Holding the needle in place with my finger I turned on the petcock and gas poured down my hand, onto my wrist and up the sleeve of my shirt. This led me to believe there was a problem with Number 3\u2019s new needle\/seat.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/2-2.jpg\")
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Upon further examination I found some unexplainable marking on the inside of the seat where the needle valve would normally seal. I\u2019m not sure what is going on. Are the stampings some kind of size identifier? Did the punch that marks the seat miss and stamp the inside of the seat?<\/p>\n
It became obvious to me that this particular needle\/seat combination was never going to seal so I picked the best looking needle\/seat from the old parts and installed them into Carb Number 3. No more leaking.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/3-2.jpg\")
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For the real mechanics: I know I should reset the floats but the bowl drain screws are very tight; removing them may break something I don\u2019t want broken. My rationale is that the replacement needles\/seats are the same overall length so the float levels wouldn\u2019t have changed much, if at all. One day I\u2019ll get the drain screws out and set the float levels using the clear tube system.<\/p>\n
The upshot is that Zed is running much better. I took a quick, 140-mile, 60-degree-January-day jaunt and stopped several times leaving the fuel petcock on: no leaks. Spinning 5000-5500 RPM in top gear the Zed returned 41 miles per gallon not including the amount of fuel that I spilled while working on the carbs. In addition, I had to turn the airscrews in almost one whole turn after installing the new needles\/seats and pilot jets.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/4-2.jpg\")
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Moving on from the carburetor woes, there are a few disappointing rubber-issues with some parts on Zed. The rubber fork wipers have split in just a little over a year. I really expected them to last a bit longer than that. The rubber vacuum plugs that cover the ports used for balancing the carbs have also rotted and split. These were new about the same time as the fork wipers. Not only are the vacuum plugs rotted, but one of the brass nozzles cast into the new rubber intake manifolds came adrift when I tried to push the vacuum plug into position. Luckily it didn\u2019t go all the way into the intake port and I managed to pull it out and get the plug onto the thing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/5-1.jpg\")
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When I was resurrecting Zed I sourced parts from all over. I\u2019m going to try and dig around to see if I have any receipts that will tell me where I got the various rubber bits. If they are EBay sellers I won\u2019t bother but I\u2019m sure the more reputable companies will work on making it right. One factor that may have caused the rubber failure is the fact that Tinfiny\u2019s shed gets very hot in the summertime. With the doors closed it\u2019s not unusual to hit 130 degrees inside. 130 degrees isn\u2019t that hot for an air-cooled motorcycle engine but New Mexico\u2019s dry air combined with long term exposure might affect the rubber. None of my other bikes stored in the same conditions have had rubber failures.<\/p>\n
Well, what do you know, I had more ground to cover but this carb story ended up running on for so long it\u2019ll make a standalone ExhaustNotes.us blog! I\u2019ll post up Giblets 2 soon.<\/p>\n
Read all about Zed’s resurrection here<\/a>!<\/p>\n Whoa!\u00a0 You’ve won a free subscription to ExhaustNotes!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With only two full-time writers here at ExhaustNotes.us, it\u2019s a real challenge to churn out the quantity of content a website demands. Luckily we have Joe Berk on staff. One Berk equals like seven normal writers. Coming up with topics is easy but some of the ideas don\u2019t rise to the level of an actual … Continue reading “Giblets 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[66,140],"tags":[12,214,342,1767,366,329,1053],"class_list":["post-11791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joe-gresh","category-vintage-motorcycle","tag-joe-gresh","tag-kawasaki","tag-kawasaki-900","tag-kawasaki-carbs","tag-kawasaki-restoration","tag-kawasaki-z1","tag-kawasaki-z1-900"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/0-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11800,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions\/11800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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