GPZ11 Injection

[moizeau]

Thanks chaps. The whole bike will get a proper check up Philippe, you can be assured of that. Thanks Adrian, I've got the base a manual and supp from Philippe and the real ones coming from Mark. They're taking an age to get here at the moment.
I spoke with the previous owner and he told me that when he got the bike one cylinder was burning oil so he had it rebored / rebuilt. Still keep forgetting to ask him about the broken chain in the box of bits.
Going by the mess of the crank sprocket there must be damage so the spare will be used if it checks out.
Does anyone know which company uses green gaskets? If they are a really cheap brand then that will add to the cheap / bad workmanship.

One other question, I've got a rattly pipe, can the baffles be accessed by drilling the 3 rivets out?

Cheers again.
A bientôt.

[Philippe]

Hi Pete
I think "athena" uses green gaskets, there might be other brands too...
Use Vesrah gaskets, not the cheapest but in my opinion very good ones. Buy viton valve guide seals and a viton camchain tunnel O ring.
Expensive but very good!
Keep us updated.
Good luck!
GrtZ
Philippe

[Al]

In the pics with the chain still on the crank had you lifted the crank out of the case by that time??
It looks like it is sitting to one side of centre. The dowel you pictured looks like a 'knock pin' that locates some of the outer bearing housings centrally in their place.
Couple of things about Uni cranks; firstly they had a reputation for twisting! Secondly; they are far more prone to wear the hardened surface from the bearing contact points than the standard J or the early kickstart motors. Even if the spare looks OK it would still be advisable to have it stripped inspected and true'd. Welding is a popular option and is not terminal for future maintenance.
Which exhaust is rattling? Laser or KHI variety?? I have an identical Laser and the two rivetts that hold the badge also hold the internal baffle assembly. That said i did have an occassion where one of the internal tubes fell out and dropped into the link pipe behind the collector. Very intermittent, very annoying, very difficult to pin down

[moizeau]

Thanks Al, the chain looked skewed from above with a torch and the barrels off. I hadn't lifted the crank out. I think it's due to the lump of metal that was trapped between the pinion and chain. Still got to work out what that metal has come from?
Regarding the pipes, it's one of the originals.
What would you suggest for testing cranks and cam, vee blocks/ DTI, and plastigauge when torqued in place?
Cheers

[Al]

What i was dirving at was that one if not both of the centre mains may be displaced if one or more 'knock pins' were left out. From earlier; the inlet side tensioner blade does have the indentation in it as that is where the tensioner plunger locates. Looking at them both, neither looks to be in good condition and i personally would not use them in a rebuilt engine particularly if there has been catastrophic engine failure and at some point a cam chain tighter than a bow string when it locked.
I have two DTI's, mag base, verdict clock, some plastigauge, 'V' blocks and 18mm rods etc etc and wouldnt try to strip and true a crank nowadays, but i did do it once before with success. It requires some specific jigs, a fly press, and other un-mentionables like deadblow / copper rawhide hammer, tree stump blah blah blah.

AL

[moizeau]

I wasn't thinking of truing a buggered one, I haven't got the experience or the tooling for that Al, just want to confirm it.
Just got the pistons off and the crank out.
The pistons look brand new from the underside

The pin I posted a picture of isn't a shell retainer, too small, it's 4mm diameter by 8mm long and the knock pins are 6mm diameter. The small pin Philippe referred to in the tensioner is still in the tensioner so at the moment NFI.
Here's the crank in all it's glory with added weight

Not having seen the insides of an engine like this intact I've no idea where this foreign body has come from, any ideas.
To clarify, it's an original exhaust that rattles.
All comments welcomed
A bientôt

[moizeau]

Slowly the picture of the seized engine may be unravelling.
I've had a reply from the seller about the 3rd cam chain that I'd presumed had snapped because it was no longer joined up. It turns out when he got the bike it used quite a bit of oil so had it rebored. The cam chain was changed at the same time. Having looked at the open ends of the 3rd chain, it has been split not snapped.
I decided to have a look at the tensioner to see what size pin is inside it holding the plunger. Had a good read of the manual to understand how it works and took it apart.

I've added the pin found in the sump to the photo....notice the foreigner? A bit of 4mm all thread!!! Surely the spring shouldn't be that distorted?
So the pin fell in during the rebuild following the rebore.
I started looking at the cylinder head again remembering the state of the exhaust cam shells and matched them to the cam caps.

1 and 2 are completely knackered to the point that when I removed the exhaust cam there were no shells under it! The only shells were those from the cap side. All inlet cam shells were present. Then I remembered the state of the cam chain guide.

So all this equates to a muppet who knows less than me (If that's possible) rebuilding the engine and over tensioning the chain, presumeably partially unscrewing the tensioner and then retightening it.
This caused the exhaust cam to be pulled down into the head eating the cam shells.....Which leads me to the next bit which may or may not be feasible?
The most buggered part of the head is next to the valve that had a broken shim. As it escaped the cam drops leaving space for it to leap between the bucket and the cam lobe thus breaking the shim. The collets were really seized in place, a lesser valve spring compressor would given up the ghost. As I said previously, there is no hit mark on the very coked up piston crown and the only problem getting the valve out was that the end of the stem had 'flared' due to an impact. Is this possible?
This next bit I'm not sure either, but if it is possible it answers some questions.

So I'm missing 4 shells and found 3 lumps of squished metal surrounding the crank sprocket. Could these be the remains of the missing shells? They seem the right length and the largest lump also seems to be the right width.
Has anyone heard of this before?

So, I'm now missing 2 exhaust cam caps and the inlet caps probably won't be correct for the spare head. The spare engine didn't come with the caps
Closer to the time when everything else has been evaluated has anyone got a bucket of caps they can lend me and if I'm lucky I can find 4 that give the correct tolerances and send the rest back (with beer tokens of course), but a bit away from there at the moment.

Next job, air compressor and a vat of red diesel to get all the good bits cleaned up to see what's missing.

[Philippe]

Hi Pete
remember what I wrote on june 1 about the parts, when I stated that the metal part around the cranckshaft sprocket could be the remnants of a camshaft guide?
I was talking about a shell from a camshaft cap...
Have a look at my "identification" of the little metal pin you found in the sump...
I think you know by now what I mean when I talk about doing things "the French way"...and about cutting corners...
Once again: have a good look at the whole bike before you start to ride it! Take good care my friend. Mind the "French mechanics"!
Good luck with the project!
GrtZ
Philippe

[moizeau]

Philippe, I had meant to give you a 'gold star' for identifying the pin but in the lengthy post it got forgotten.

[Al]

There is a Uni 1100 head on ebay that might be worth investigating. It needs some ....... er...... something. Anodite? Araldite. Rocker bit? Anyway it has caps and all the other gubbins and might be repairable.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kawasaki-GPZ ... SwFy9evrXa

AL

[moizeau]

Thanks for the link Al. My spare is in really good nick apart from missing the caps. I'll bear it in mind, it maybe worth a punt or it turn into a world of pain? At least I know they are out there.

Having a play with the rattly baffle. I've drilled the 3 rivets out and eased the end plate inwards away from the silencer to give a small gap around the circumference. It now moves a little but won't come out. Is it also held in using the Kawasaki badge rivets or just crap?
Cheers

[moizeau]

End cap of the pipe. It was just crap / rust holding it on. Made up a slide hammer and found that a plumbing fitting can be threaded in the end, then gently persuaded out.

The inside end of the end plate pipe just slots into a support bracket.

Now comes the fun decisions.

Just behind the support plate is a baffle support, this is spot welded from exit end of the end piece about level with the 'S' on the Kawasaki badge. There are 2 baffles being help in place and they travel down the end piece and are then supported by (I presume) a similar setup at the joint between the end piece and the centre section. Unfortunately this plate is welded, again from the rear, but in the centre section. The next couple of spot welds are located roughly where the model stamp is. So again presuming this is another support plate.
When I said 'rattle', that's not quite true. Whatever is in this forward section slides between these 2 plates.
So, given that although the exhaust is quite tidy, I need to cut the end piece off to see what's going on. I can't use the pipe in this condition anyway. It's a 'bar steward' but....
I'll need to make some grinding guides to keep the cut as clean as possible.....and then after the repair find a REALLY good welder to put it back together. It won't look as good as new and will need some touching in with some HT gloss black, but better than chucking it in the bin.....I hope.

[Philippe]

Hi Pete
the inside of a muffler has a few plates and several pipes . The plates act like "walls" between two "chambers " and through those walls are pipes fitted. Some of those pipes connect one chamber to another and other pipes connect one of the chambers to yet another (third) chamber. The exhaust gasses run through these pipes and follow a strange way... they circle around and bounce onto eachother creating a pressure and by doing that they dampen the noise of the exhaust gasses and create a counter pressure so that the filling of the cylinder with new combustion mixture is achieved in the correct way. Strange I know...that's the theory if this allso works in real life...no idea.
I think that one of the connecting pipes came out of the "wall" because it was too rusty.
My advice: don't open the muffler. Leave it the way it is. If you open it there's a big chance it's lost for future use. Mount the muffler as it is and make a ride with the bike. You probably won't hear the rattling when you ride the bike. You might hear the rattling when you remove the bike from the main stand...
If it's too bad, replace the muffler with a better one.
GrtZ
Philippe

[moizeau]

Going to leave the pipe at the moment, but whatever is moving around in there is quite substantial so I'll probably end up cutting the pipe up at some point. If it's a baffle then as much as I balance the inlet the outlet won't be.

On to another note.
After finding my feeler gauges, 2 sets in fact, very rusty, bought some new ones. Checked the big end axial play of the spare crank, well within specs, then checked the 75mm pistons in their liners (not in the barrels), well within so pleased so far.

Next to the unknown pistons

The top ring groove measures 0.95mm, 2nd 1.00, the oil scraper 2.65mm.

Are these standard rings people?

I am going to continue with the spare head, albeit that it hasn't got it's caps. A risk but I hope I can find some caps that give the correct clearances, minor adjustments must be possible with a bit of lapping? If not please tell me.

Checked the bible and the service limit for clearance for the cams is 0.16mm so am looking at this
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Plastigauge-pre ... xy~dNRA9nQ
It gives it's largest measurement as 0.175mm, would this be the one to go for? I understand how it works, just never used it before.
Please feel very free to comment, tell me off, give advice etc. etc.
Cheers

[moizeau]

A decision has been made regarding the liners and pistons. Originally the thought was to put the spare liners and pistons in to the bike's barrels.
Then I bought this

Now I realise at 40 squid delivered it is no where near a pro tool, but I've checked it's repeatability and it's very good, how accurate it is...who knows, but it is a good comparitor.
The spare liners looked scar free so I was going to go with those since the original ones have minor vertical scoring, but I've now compared the liners. The spare liners are 0.07mm larger than the bike liners. Also the out of round is less on the originals, only 0.03mm. The top middle and bottom measurements are also better on the originals, 0.02mm difference. The original rings give a gap of 0.2 at the top to 0.4mm at the base. So going to refit the original liners but going to spin them 90 degrees, giving the smallest diameter front to back.