Z1R Resurrection

[The Living Zed]

With the sizes, I marked out plates and fabricated the lower bracket. This involved vigorous drilling, hacksawing and filing.

[The Living Zed]

With the lower bracket in place I was able to fabricate the upper bracket which incorporated the upper rear engine mounts. I used cardboard for templates and found that Fosters lager boxes are the right thickness and strength for this purpose. I always manage to keep a good stock of cardboard.

[Swirl]

Some nice skills here, looks really well

[The Living Zed]

With the shocker all mounted I did a quick build off the frame jig. Looks like I used the SRAD yokes at this point. The picture isn’t quite square on, but it seems close to the Hayabusa suspension drawing. On a previous bike I had some problems with shocker and linkage lengths, so this time I made the top of the shock bolt onto adjustable plates to give more scope for movement if I needed it this time.

[The Living Zed]

At this stage I’m wondering about fitting foot pegs, but you need a seat to try it out to see where they’re gonna fit. My seat pan was rotten when I took the cover off, so repairs were needed first.

[The Living Zed]

During the rest of the frame build I used my phone as an iPod in my shed so I must apologize for not taking any pictures of this part of the project. All I had to do was unplug it from the docking station and snap away but I didn’t and I’m sorry – OK!

Seriously though, there were a few things I wish I’d taken pictures of.

Mounting the foot pegs: Made a reversible jig locating off the swing arm point to hold the bosses in place to ensure they were equal both sides.

Battery box: Cut, folded and welded in the shed and the mounting strips.

Frame bracing: Looked at a few ideas on the net and sorted that. This also included side panel grommet plates and reinforcing the swing arm points.

Rear mudguard: Made one in aluminium and welded lugs to frame.

Rear light: Altered existing plate on frame for a new LED one. Not sure if I like it though.

Original Shock bolts: Cut off and tidied up.

Oil cooler: Brackets made and fitted.

Various Brackets: Rear brake reservoir. Pillion foot pegs. Regulator/rectifier. Starter solenoid. Ignition switch. Earth point. Side stand (mustn’t forget the side stand).


These are some pics of the dry build:

[CAT3]

Coming along nicely, love projects like this

[The Living Zed]

And so on to the engine. Crank cases cleaned and sprayed.

[The Living Zed]

I knocked up a little engine jig to build it in. Top case with crank, gearbox and clutch in.

[The Living Zed]

Bottom end together ready for the top end to go on. Just need to put the studs in .....

[chrisNI]

Coming along nicely

[The Living Zed]

I'd already got a set of Wiseco 73mm pistons for it and was quite looking forward to fitting them. I'd bought a set of piston ring pliers because the rings are quite strong and I didn't want to risk breaking any trying to fit them by hand, plus you've gotta have the right tools for the job, so I got some ring clamps too. What I hadn't thought of was gapping the rings. I knew about piston ring gaps and understand the reason for them, but I always thought the re-boring process took care of the ring gap, as you always have to give the re-borer a piston with rings.

As mentioned earlier, I had a set of sleeves made at https://westwoodcylinderliners.co.uk/
And fitted them like this:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIoi6SXAm_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUnf9Up3wxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ItwaWqhBgk&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bVnBriL9is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I9yuI6mfUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gADhzSNt8PU

After re-sleeving I took the block with a piston and rings to PJ Engineering (as recommended by “The Z1OC”) just up the road from me in Wednesfield for the re-bore, thinking that’ll be ready for assembly. It's a good job I read the instructions for the pistons. They say you have to gap the rings. Wiseco explain really well how to fit the rings and the pistons with a table to calculate the correct ring gap for the type of engine use (street, turbo, nitrous, drag race). I looked for more info on the net just to be sure, but it only confirmed what Wiseco instructions tell you anyway.

http://www.wiseco.com/PDFs/Manuals/RingEndGap.pdf

So I drop a ring into a bore and measure the gap with a feeler gauge as you do, to find the gap’s too small. “Phew!!! It’s a good job I didn’t go ahead and just build it” me thinks. But how am I going to file the ends of the rings accurately keeping them square? Do I buy a machine to do it? No, I make a jig. I used a GFS (tool steel Ground Flat Stock) plate as a base and bored two dowel holes at calculated positions so that the ring could locate against the dowels and the intersection of the edge of the plate is square to the edge of the piston ring, i.e. the centre of the ring lies on the edge of the plate. This edge of the plate is the datum edge. I drilled and tapped two holes in the datum edge to fix another piece of GFS to act as a stop. This is the fence. I drilled and tapped another hole in between the dowel holes for a clamp to hold the ring in place.

[The Living Zed]

The way it works is, push a ring into the bore. Push it in with a piston to ensure the ring is square to the bore. Measure the gap with feeler gauges. Calculate the required gap using the Wiseco table. Subtract the measured gap from the required gap. This is the amount that needs to be taken off the end of the ring. Insert a feeler gauge for this amount between the fence and the datum edge on the jig and tighten the fence. Fit the ring onto the jig up against the fence and clamp in place. Remove the fence. Now the end of the ring stands proud of the datum edge by the amount required to be removed. Using a small carborundum stone (or a diamond file) dress the end of the ring off flush to the datum edge. Re-insert the ring into the bore and check the gap to be sure it is correct and adjust accordingly. I aired on the side of caution and took off 0.001” to 0.002” less than required then checked the gap. You can always take a bit more off, but you can’t put it back on. A metal putting back on tool is a welder. Once I’d done the rings for a bore I fitted them on the piston, numbered it ready for assembly the moved onto the next one. Once I’d got going it didn’t take too long to complete all four sets of rings. I also noticed that you could tell if the gap was not quite parallel when checking with feeler gauges. Sometimes the feeler went in but got tighter towards the cylinder surface, some were fine and some were tight at the inner point but the feeler only felt tight at this inner point and kind of pivoted on the tight point. These discrepancies were only about 1 thou’ and were easy to correct on the jig by setting the ring slightly off one of the dowels depending which way the tapper was. I did use a good quality set of Moore & Wright feeler gauges to do this and a decent magnifying glass. I felt pleased with the job when I’d finished and happy all the gaps were correct and accurate.

[The Living Zed]

Pistons on ...

[The Living Zed]

Barrels on ...