Been Awhile

I had eye surgery so I haven't been able to work on much of the bike.
My wife picked up the Cam cap dowel pin that is needed to put it back together, now I see that I am missing a Valve spring seat too.
I'll get that and start putting it all back together. My camera took a poop on me so I have to find another one that I can use to keep you up to date on the progress.
Keep checking back and I'll get more posted soon.
Keep watching http://wisnercycles.blogspot.com and watch his progress on the stuff he is working on.

CLEAN VALVES

I spent my lunch hour today cleaning the valves off so that Kody can help me Lap them. I haven't worked on the bike in the past week due to an Eye surgery last Thursday...
This first photo shows how Kody had me place the valves into some Cardboard cutout and label where each one went. This works great. Now I can put them back exactly as they were.

Felling better now and back in action. Over the weekend I had to get the RV out and running too for the upcoming Camping Season.

Gotta do something for the wife or she'll get suspicious.

I used a wire brush to get most of the gunk off and then polished a little bit with some Scotch brite pad that I cut off of Jerry's peice.

Hopefully Kody can work with me tonight to get the valves lapped while I rinse out the head a few more times.

Fun in the Shop

Last Saturday, I got the chance to work a bit in the shop, it was a cold windy day so we all brought our kids in for the day to hang out with us.
Here are some cool shots.

He's a Wylde one, a real Wylde ONE.

Like father, Like Son

Biker in Training

The Bad News Crue;

Wolverine, Wylde and Cain.

Cain, yer such a HAM... He is my youngest. He is posing on the bike with one of Kody's friends kids, we called him Wolverine all day. I can't remember his name.

GASKETS AGAIN

Here is a photo of scraping the gaskets off the top of the lower end. I am getting the hang of this.

Few Days off

I have taken a few days off of working on the bike to take care of some things at home. Fixed some cabinets, helped a friend get moved, got sick, took the kid fishing, blah blah blah.
Other than that, I have just been scraping gaskets on the top of the bottom end. Then I needed to turn the pistons a bit so I had to take the Stator cover off. This meant there was another gasket that needed to be scrapted and another point that needed to be flattened / honed.

This whole gasket thing is for the birds... They need to design something else for this. I am getting to be a master at gasket removal though. It just takes time and pressure.
TIME AND PRESSURE, isn't that how a diamond is made? This is like a diamond in the rough. It'll be a shining diamond when I am all done with it. Until then, it's still just a peice of coal, keep up the pressure over time and it'll be a diamond.

Kody says we can Lap the valves this week and start putting this thing back together. I am hoping that nothing else is wrong with it when it all gets back together, I cannot afford to take it all apart again. Gaskets aren't cheap and you need a new one everytime you put the damn thing together.
Until tomorrow, I am going to be working on it later today.. I'll get some more photos of the progress.

Craigslist, Ebay and other Resources

Since I don't have access to a Kawasaki dealership locally that carries 30 year old parts, I am forced to look elsewhere for parts and accessories for my project.
Now, thankfully for the Internet, everyone is just an arms reach away.
Utilizing Craigslist is my favorite way of shopping for these things. I am in Eastern Iowa and there aren't always the things I need really close by but when they are, I can drive a few miles and get that really cool part that I found that day.

Such an occurance just happened for me. SADDLE BAGS - GRAIGLIST.ORG I found a posting from 3 days ago on a set of KAWASAKI saddlebags listed in Dubuque. I actually didn't find the posting, Kody Wisner of Wisner Cycles found it. I have been working on my bike in his shop with his guidance. (This doesn't happen for everyone so don't expect it.) Kody was looking for some parts for one of his bikes when he stumbled upon these bags.
All it took was a phone call and an email and I had connected with this guy Thomas Z. I'll call him Tommy Z for now.

Tommy had gotten these bags in an estate sale when he purchased a really cool 1979 Honda Twinstar that was in about mint condition. Well, they were Kawasaki bags, they won't work on the Twinstar so he was putting them up for sale.
What is really nice about Graiglist.org is that you can actually meet and talk to the seller, go and see the product before you actually purchase it. I got to meet Tommy Z. and his son last night after work. What a great couple of guys.
Tom has an affinity for Mopeds, and no I don't mean the Honda Express from yesteryear, I mean cool stuff like the SACHS from Germany, Bridgestones, PUCH from Czech and such. These are really cool mopeds. He even has 3 completely restored Honda 125's. He did them all in his basement. Way cool.
From the way he tells it, he got one a few years ago, restored it and started riding it and he caught the bug. The restoration bug. Now he has done about 8-10 mopeds since he started and is having fun with it. I hope he starts a blog on his projects.
Anyway, back to the resources. By meeting this guy, I could get the whole story behind these bags, I got the chance to look at the bags and check tem over well before I even had to buy them. That is how I would prefer to buy things.
Now that I have them, I got them back only to discover that they don't fit exactly. No big deal, they are close enough that all I need to do is drill a hole in the lower leg of the bracket and put an extenstion on the frame to come out to the top forward mounting point.
I'll keep this updated as I go along as well.

As for the bags themselves, they are great. 2 maroon bags with Chrome crash guards and nearly spotless mounting brackets. Someone at some point had started to sand the bags but I'll get better pics of that tonight. These bags also have the Amber turn signals built into the bag. I think that is great.
I'll do some more research on these bags and figure out exactly how I am going to mount them and then I'll get that posted.
Until then, keep checking back to see the progress as the next thing to do is the Valve cover, clean it, blast it and paint it.

One last thing to say, I think I have made a new Friend in Tommy Z.