Z1-B resurrection after 43 years

[ADRIAN H]

Many thanks Rob. I'll order 2 x 2.75 and 1 x 2.65 shims from Z-Power.

On another point, I'm running Dyna S coils with the wiredgeorge setup, and using their carbon-cored radio-suppressed HT lead. The caps are NGK and are marked 5Kohm. Am I double-suppressing here and would that weaken the spark at the plug?

Change your supressor caps for ordinary, or you will lose power.

[steve452]

Change your supressor caps for ordinary, or you will lose power.

Any specific suggestions? The only unsuppressed caps I can find are the crap rubber "Lodge" type used on old British bikes.

[ADRIAN H]

Change your supressor caps for ordinary, or you will lose power.

Any specific suggestions? The only unsuppressed caps I can find are the crap rubber "Lodge" type used on old British bikes.

Agrre appear difficult to find.

link to a few https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/product_list/16

Z-POWER sell reproductions of the original caps - https://www.z-power.co.uk/plug-cap-set-x-4-metal

[zed1015]

You can buy NGK non resistor caps but they are the short 90 degree type.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NGK-None-Resis ... 868&sr=8-1

or just remove the resistor from the existing plug caps .

[steve452]

Change your supressor caps for ordinary, or you will lose power.

Z-POWER sell reproductions of the original caps - https://www.z-power.co.uk/plug-cap-set-x-4-metal

I did look at these first but then spotted if you look at the zoomed image you can see the resistance symbol (omega) alongside what looks like 3 or 6K.

[ADRIAN H]

Change your supressor caps for ordinary, or you will lose power.

Z-POWER sell reproductions of the original caps - https://www.z-power.co.uk/plug-cap-set-x-4-metal

I did look at these first but then spotted if you look at the zoomed image you can see the resistance symbol (omega) alongside what looks like 3 or 6K.

I'd give Zpower a call, and see what they suggest you do / what you can use.

or do as Rob says - just take the resistor out, (not sure how easy that is to do ?).

[steve452]

Just installed the new shims and battened down the cam cover (with grease on the gasket ).

On the subject of ignition primary side resistance I ran a meter from the crimp at the end of HT lead #1 to the plug cap connector on the plug side. Got 13.1 K/ohm! The plug cap measured 5.1 K/ohm which means #1 HT lead is 8 K/ohm on its own!

Anyone know if you can use copper core HT lead with Dyna S coils?

[zed1015]

Anyone know if you can use copper core HT lead with Dyna S coils?

Yes! Dyna actually sell copper cored leads for use with their coils.

[steve452]

Anyone know if you can use copper core HT lead with Dyna S coils?

Yes! Dyna actually sell copper cored leads for use with their coils.

Thanks Rob. I'm guessing they're low resistance?

[steve452]

Took the Z1-B for a run to the Hampshire Biker Bastards Bike Night tonight, its first proper run (about 60 miles all told).

I managed to get 80mph out of it on the M3 on the way home. It also chuntered along happily at 60mph on the A33/A30 into Basingstoke from Winchester. It still seems sluggish on acceleration but having ridden a 400bhp Ninja H2 for the last 5 years and expecting it to pull instantly I may be demanding too much. I can't remember what it was like when I last rode it 43 years ago. Anyway, it no longer seems to be pissing fuel out of the #2 overflow, so hopefully the ride has settled that down.

On restarting to leave the bike night the oil light failed to go out again so I'll replace the switch with a new genuine and see what happens. Having already had this situation twice now and the oil pressure checking out OK whilst the oil light was actually on I'm not overly concerned. I might be if the new switch doesn't resolve it!

Heading for home via an Esso garage (for some luvverly Esso Supreme "Shit Free" fuel) I noticed the revs had dropped to zero according to the tacho, but the engine was definitely still making vroom-vroom noises. Funny, I thought...funny. Pulling up to the fuel pump I discovered the outer of the tacho cable hanging loose, having detached itself from the head, and the inner cable hanging loose, having detached itself from the outer, but still attached to the head! I re-fed the inner into the outer and screwed up the gnurled nut onto the head and it worked! I noticed the tacho had failed over half a mile from the garage so considered myself more than lucky the inner cable hadn't fallen out. Reminded myself to definitely do the lottery this week.

There's always a downside though. So as I didn't burn myself on the headers whilst screwing in the tacho cable nut, I used a micro-fibre cloth to turn it. Doh! Forgot they're made of bloody plastic! Now have a lovely six inch dark orange coating on #3 header. Anybody know the best way to remove it without damaging the chrome?

[steve452]

Newsflash! Burnt micro-fibre plastic comes off with the judicious use of a new Stanley blade and copious amounts of WD-40 as a lubricant. Still scratched the chrome a bit though. Anyone know how to remove fine scratches from headers? They're PMC Z900 BTW although Paul Scanlon has done some magic on the baffles to make them breathe and sound like a Z1.

Due to the escapade with the tacho cable I decided to give the gnurled nut at the head a slight twist with the pliers upon which it split circumferentially. I shopuld have learnt my lesson as this happened with the first one I bought. I keep forgetting that the nuts are now made of plastic. I'm sure the original cables had metal nuts because I use to use pliers to tighten them up without them breaking. Anyhows, the nut has now been superglued, welded with Bondic, and Locktite'd to the thread on the head. If it comes off again there'll be a murder.

Dyna S copper HT leads arrived today and have now been fitted to the existing NGK plug caps and all re-installed on the bike. Took some resistance measurements and with the 5Kohm caps installed I got readings of between 5.4Kohm and 5.7Kohm so should get fatter sparkles now. Couldn't fire up to check as I installed all the kit quite late in the day and don't want to piss off my neighbours too much.

Also did a check on nuts and bolts tightness after the run the other day. All the camshaft cover bolts needed tightening again, I'm guessing due to the new gasket bedding in. Also checked the head nuts and bolts. Strangely enough most of the head nuts and the two bolts were near enough OK but the four centre nuts needed quite a bit more twizzling of the torque wrench.

Couldn't check the two head bolts without removing the outer two plugs, so removed all four just to check and was fairly happy with the result (see pic). Maybe a tadge on the lean side but I'll settle for that at the moment. It's running on Esso Supreme (shit free fuel) so near enough what it was originally designed to run on.

Will fire up again tomorrow and hope all goes well with the new HT leads. If it rides OK will be driving up to friends in Bucks so that should give it a good run.

[zapo]

Always fun and games with these old girls!

[Al]

They look a little on the rich side, which to be fair, is more useful for air-cooled engines.
I have been using this for a few years and find / have found it to be very accurate, in that it predicts and is representative of changes i have made whilst using it.

http://www.wallaceracing.com/plug-reading-lm.html

QUOTE: NOTE: If the base ring has a full turn of colour with some spots of heavy dry soot, then jetting is too rich, REGARDLESS, if the porcelain is "BONE-WHITE", jetting is still TOO RICH !!!
NOTE: Do not look at the porcelain to read jetting !!!

This is how things were in 1977!!
http://www.dansmc.com/spark_plugs/spark ... talog.html
You can enlarge any pic by clicking on it.

AL

[moizeau]

Excellent read, thanks Al

[steve452]

Cheers Al. After 51 years on a bike I still believed that the condition of the porcelain was how you checked the mixture. Thanks for setting me right. Every day's a school day!

Anyway, got the Z1-B to Chesham and back OK (actually managed to get up to a ton in a short burst) and it was happily cruising between 65 and 75 with shorts bursts above and below to keep the revs variable. Although I've only fitted new rings on the original pistons and just manually honed the bores myself, I'm treating it as if it was a rebore and running the revs on that basis.

The superglued and Bondic'd tacho cable nut disintegrated somewhere outside Aylesbury so I fed the detached loose end back through the cable guide to stop it flapping about (I couldn't undo the tacho end nut as I had no tools with me, having not yet populated the toolbag and replaced it back under the seat). Doh!

I ordered another tacho cable from Z-Power yesterday at 11:00am. It arrived this morning at 10:00am. What a service!!! Top guys. This week I will mostly not be using pliers on plastic nuts...again.

Following advice from Al I turned all the pilot air screws one eighth of a turn out. It seems to have settled down the tickover a tadge but as I had no working tacho at the time I couldn't be sure. I do have a dwell-angle meter but couldn't be arsed to go through the all the shenanigans.

I'm not confident about vacuum syncing as the last time I attempted that I ended up with the tickover at 5000 rpm. I'll try and get it as close to running OK as I can then get an expert to have a look at it.

As Jeffrey was wont to remark "Hey ho, let's go."