IT'S ALIVE

The bike is running. It runs great too. I have had it out riding a few times and I love it.

I got the cam chain tensioner installed and the re-did the timing which was off 180 degrees causing the NO COMPRESSION issue.

Fish did the wiring for the tail light and turn signals for me and I still have to fix the Front Brake connection so that it works but that is minor.

Here is a photo fo me with the bike for the J&P Cycles Employee photos page in the catalog.

Again, this is a 1982 Kawasaki KZ 1100

Cam Chain Tensioner

I think we nailed down the problem with compression. CAM CHAIN TENSIONER.

I took it off and it was really stiff to push in and out. It would stick in sometimes too.

This was causing a slack in the timing chain that I beleive was making the valves open prematurely.

I have ordered a new one from Z1 Enterprises.com and am anxious to get it and put it on. Hopefully this will take care of the compression problem, if so, then this baby will be up and running shortly.

I also finally added the oil to the front fork tubes and the seals that I installed seem to be working well.

I almost made the mistake of using the air compressor to put air in them, then the guys caught me. ONLY USE A HAND PUMP ON THIS. It can push way too much pressure into the forks causing damage if you do.

I'll let you all know how it goes and hopefully have some riding shots and footage soon.

Thanks for watching.

Hurry up and wait

The J&P cycles Open house was a huge event. I had to put the bike in a trailer for storage while the event was going on and with a Week of Boy Scout Camp and then a week of family vacation along with all of the other hassles of life I haven't gotten around to working on the bike.

Now I am having a problem with compression. This could be timing, this could be bad rings, I don't know. We are going to dig into it this Sunday and see what is wrong. We are going to work on it again soon to get it finished.

I did get the brake lines cleaned up, filled with fluid and bled. I still need to get fork oil into it.

I'll keep you up to date as things progress.

Late night again

Tonight I worked on the bike from 6pm til 3 AM.

I removed the valve cover, scraped the gaskets (AGAIN) got it all cleaned up and then Tom showed me how to take out the shims and gauge them. Since I had lapped the valves, almost all of them were 2 or 3 sizes smaller. I thought I was going to have to buy all new shims... Fortunately for me, Kody had just the ones that I needed. I was a little frustrated at first since he only had 2 of the 2.45 mm shims and I thought they would all be that. Well, they weren't.

I will be going back at it at 8 am as it is 3am right now and putting the valve cover back on, let that sit a bit, wire up the tail lights and turn signals, bleed the brakes, fill the fork tubes with Fork Oil and putting the mirrors back on since the ones that I got were from a Yamaha... (Reverse threadding on the right side..)

I don't have any photos from tonight but they wouldn't look much different from the ones below as it would have once again been the top off of the motor...

Last night, from 5:30 to 6:30 I re-built the carbs with all new needles, jets, filter thingy's that the needls go into and these little rubber washer thinga-ma-hoo's.

THEY DON'T OVERFLOW anymore. That is a good thing. Another problem solved. We may start this thing up tomorrow, if so, I won't be posting for a bit. Could take awhile before the gas runs out....

Wish me luck...... I need all that I can get.

CANDLEBOX Linn County Fair July 19th 2009

Here is a photo of me on the Ghost Rider bike that was given away by Easyriders Magazine for 2009.. Kody built the bike for J&P Cycles. I filmed it and made the video. I also had a hand in building it... I held the triple trees while Kody put the handle bars on... Maybe a bolt or two as well.

I can't say I did much though.

Weekend of Hard Work

Now after an entire weekend of working on the bike solid, I finally got a ton accomplished with the invaluable assistance of Kody Wisner at Wisner Cycles. Kody dared me to do something stupid and he would put my motor together, so I did it and he put it together.

Needless to say, it still hasn't started. After getting the gaskets that I needed finally (Thanks to z1enterprises.com) and thanks to Kody's mom for running to Iowa City to get one last gasket for me.

The carberators overflowed when I turned on the gas... It did turn over but it also seems as if we didn't get the shimming quite right and we aren't getting any compression. So, that means taking the valve cover off, then re-checking that, then cleaning up all of that gasket mess again.

Although the bike is coming along nicely.. It is starting to look like a motorcycle again.

I cannot wait to get it running. Here are some photos to look at of how things are going and how the weekend went.

Enjoy

Photos coming soon.

OK,

The eye is all better, been able to get to work on the bike but I broke my camera...went mushroom hunting with the kids and I had the camera in my pocket with my phone and while squatting down , I broke the screen on the camera. I used Kody's camera to shoot some photos of the progress on the bike. The paint job is done. I had to bondo the rear fender to make the tail light fit right. I used the Herculiner Bedliner to paint my 1982 KZ 1100 motorcycle. It looks pretty cool, definately unique.

I have put on the Auto-Gem Turn Signals and the Beehive Tail light. I got my valve stem seals and put the head back together.. Now I am waiting for some seals from Z1enterprises.com that shipped the day that I ordered them and I'll get the cylinders, head, valve covers etc put back together. Put the body parts back on it, sync the carbs and put the filter pods on and see if this thing will start up.

Thank you for following along with the progress of this bike. I am having a ton of fun with it.

Thank you so much to Kody, Fish, Tom and Jerry for all of your help on this bike. Patrick G. saved my butt too when he had the exact size HeliCoil to repair a stripped bolt hold in the head for a Cam Cap.

Like I said, I'll get more pics up really soon that shows the progress.