Restoration of a Z1000A2

[paul doran]

Amazing patience You have Phillippe

[Skid Mark]

Fair Play Phillippe,
That is some result in such a short space of time.
I'm utterly demorilised!

[Gray17]

Agreed, when i look at your starting point and what youve achieved and then look at mine and what i've achieved in 5 months, puts my work rate to shame.
In my defence, i dont do it 8 hours a day nor everyday, also i fully stripped mine then took all black parts in to blasters, they took 3 weeks or so to fully clean bits, due to very busy, then they had to go to the powder coaters, another week or so. You do everything in house. Same with Engine fully stripped it then off to vapour blasters, didnt get these back until late January due to Xmas etc. Like the way yours have come up, almost new looking. Of course because youve done several youve honed your skills, whereas im still learning.
Of course i have stripped and done several other bikes before, but never a Kawasaki Z900 so taking my time, plus i keep finding need more bits. You then have to order and await delivery before fitment.
It appears lots of parts have been swopped out over the 40 years for wrong bits and im having to correct as i go along. Least thats my excuse and i'm sticking to it! Ha
Regardless your work rate and indeed the quality achieved is excellent. Well done!, I enjoy reading the updates, its spearing me on!

[Philippe]

Hello men

an update of the progress I made yesterday and today:

Yesterday I decided to start mounting a few parts and the main stand was the first thing I did.
It's easier when there's nothing in the way to mount it.
First you attach the spring and then you mount the two bolts and nuts, you can lift the whole frame to have an easy access to the place where the main stand must come.

Then the headstock was mounted.
Make sure that the places where the conical roller bearings must come are clean.

Apply plenty of grease in the bearings

Don't be afraid to smear a lot of grease in the headstock, you don't see it once the parts are in place.

Today there were some very pleasant surprises:
This morning the postgirl came and she had two parcels for me, a big heavy one and a small light one.
After opening both of them it looked like Christmas:

The big order from Z-Fever arrived and the piston rings from Scheuerlein.

Wow, now the assembly could really start!
I decided to start with the swingarm but first of all the grease nipple needed attention. It was disassembled, cleaned and mounted.

After that, the swingarm was mounted in the frame. Don't forget to put the drive chain over it when you're using an endless chain!

The battery box and a lot of electric stuff was mounted

The fork legs were also assembled

More pictures and news tomorrow!
GrtZ
Philippe

[Philippe]

Hi men I'm back

yesterday morning I heated up the oven and the wheel hubs and lower fork legs were baked.
Yes, the clear coat must be baked in order to get it hard.
When using the clear coat from Restom take care to screw bolts in the parts so they don't touch anything else.
When baking the clear coat it becomes sticky but after cooling down it becomes hard.
After the parts cooled down I could mount the new ball bearings.
When putting new ball bearings in the rear wheel hub take care about the sleeve that has to come between them. You can only insert it from the sprocket carrier side. So start with the right hand ball bearing, put the sleeve in the hub and mount the left hand ball bearing afterwards.
The sprocket carrier also received a new ball bearing and the rear sprocket was mounted.

the wheel hubs

In the afternoon another pleasant surprise: the tyres were delivered!
Brand new Bridgestone Battlax BT 46 tyres.

As you can see my "partner in crime" is interested in them too!

To finish the day I started lacing up the front wheel...it took me a few test runs before I got the spokes at the correct place so that the spokes run straight from the hub to the rim.
Today I'll start by straightening the wheel which can take some time.

Let's hope it goes fast...time will tell.

Perhaps more news this afternoon.
GrtZ
Philippe

[r3sc]

Hi Philippe,

Great progress as usual!

The wheel rims you are using look good, are they brand new, good used or re chromed originals?

Good wheels make a bike in my opinion.

Cheers

Pete.

[Bill P]

Fantastic progress lovely job and nice to see the Boss keeping an eye on quality

Cheer's

Bill

[Philippe]

Hello men

thanks for the compliments guys!
@r3sc: these are rechromed Takasago wheel rims.
The front one is a 305, the rear one a 306. Both have the date code 7C (March 1977)
The bike was build in November '77 ...OK, they're not the correct ones but at least they allready existed when the bike was build.
When I bought the bike there were alloy wheels in, and not even from Kawasaki so I think these wheels are an improvement.

This morning the front wheel was adjusted and it went really good.
Then it was time to lace the spokes in the rear hub.
For those who never laced a wheel, I'm going to try to explain how I do it.
I'm sure there are better ways but I don't know them.
To start:
if you have a second hand wheel hub there are traces of the previous spokes: small indentations in the aluminium.
These traces are on the outside of the hub.
I always start by putting the spokes in that run from the outside through the hub towards the inside of the hub and then run to the rim.
There are 10 spokes on the sprocket carrier side of the rim that run from the outside and 10 spokes that run from the inside.
Use the spokes that have the shortest part after the bend and before the thick part.
I start with a hole in the rim just beside the hole where the valve comes through.
Take care though in an original rear Takasago rim there are 3 holes: two holes for the tyre grippers at 180° opposite to each other and a third hole for the inner tube valve. Make no mistake!

When you have determined the correct place of the first spoke, put the other 9 spokes in the rim at their correct place, leaving between each spoke 3 spoke holes in the rim. After the 10 spokes are secured with a nipple you have this:

Turn the wheel upside down and take 10 spokes, on this side ( brake rotor), all the spokes are the same.

Secure them with a nipple through the rim.
Place the other 10 spokes and secure them with a nipple.
Turn the wheel around and put the 10 remaining spokes through the hub and again, secure them with a nipple.
By now the wheel should look like this:

Now it's time to start tightening the nipples in order to get an even tension on all the 40 spokes.
Do it slowly, 10 equal spokes at a time until you have tightened them all but not too much.
Repeat this several times, between each 10 spokes turn the wheel upside down.
This can take some time but you'll see that it becomes real neat after a while.

Then you must align the wheel, that's a matter of trial and error and you must experience this yourself . If you put more stress on one side of the wheel , the rim will bend in the direction of the side where the stress is the highest. You must try to align the rim so there's practically no warp in it.
It's all a matter of practice and of patience.

Anyway this morning both wheels were aligned and the tyres were placed on them

This afternoon the inner tubes were delivered and they were mounted inside the tyre. The tyres were putted on the rims and the brake rotors were installed.
If you mount the tyres yourself be careful not to damage the brake rotors.
The rear wheel was installed in the swing arm and this is what it looks now.

The front wheel is ready but it'll have to wait for instalment.

So that's all folks!
GrtZ
Philippe

[Philippe]

Gentleman

todays update:
The rear mudguard is installed.
Before the installation I mounted the rear light bracket and the rear light, it's much easier to do that when the mudguard is still on the workbench. It's easier to push the electric wires through the tunnel in the mudguard and to connect them with the rear loom.

The regulator, hazard relay and rear master brake cylinder are mounted

The rear brake line, the exhaust hangers and the passenger footpegs are also attached,

This afternoon the meters were assembled
As you can see, I use a mounting jig where the meter can be inserted in order to bend the stainless steel ring around the meter body.

When assembling the meters, take care to open up the ring enough, it must slide over the meter body or else the rubber between the meter body and the ring will be distorted.
The stainless steel ring is then closed with a chissel that came with the jig.

I couldn't resist to mount the meters on the bracket and the bracket to the upper yoke.
Remeber what the meters looked like?
Just a picture to remind you

This is how they look now

All the light bulbs in the meters and in the idiot lights were changed. 10 new light bulbs, it's easy when the loom is out and it would be stupid to leave 40 years old light bulbs in place...

I also mounted the handlebar switches on the handlebar...it was quite a fiddling to get the electric wires through the handlebar but I succeeded, they're on!

So that's all for today pals.
Maybe more news tomorrow.
GrtZ
Philippe

[Gray17]

What an excellent article, its almost like there's 10 of you doing it, or at least speeded up, youve already overtaken me and ive been doing mine for 5 months, of course i know youve done lots of others and as they say experience counts! The wheel lace up was great too should i ever decide to give it a go.
You def are a wealth of knowledge and your work rate and quality too exemplary. Pity you dont live near me!
If only Ha! Keep up the great posts

[Philippe]

Gentleman

She's on her wheels!

This morning I assembled the front brake calipers and the front brake master cylinder.
I used all new parts, safety first you know!
Keep in mind that the Z1000A2 and the Z1R have different brake calipers compared to other models, the diameter of the brake pistons is 38 mm, so take care when you want to renew them, measure the brake pistons before ordering new ones!

This noon the postgirl arrived with the last missing parts: the fork dust covers.
I thought I had a pair of them but they turned out to be for a Z1, and didn't fit the forklegs of the Z1000, they were too wide.
As soon as they were available I mounted them on the forks and they fitted perfectly!
The fork was installed, the front mudguard, the brake calipers,...all of these parts were mounted where they belong.

The next few days I'll assemble the lower engine. The barrels are only partially cleaned and the cylinder head still has to be cleaned completely.
As soon as the barrels are clean, I'll install them and then I can put the engine into the frame.
The whole cleaning operation can take a few days.
Perhaps some more pictures tomorrow.
GrtZ
Philippe

[r3sc]

Philippe, your work rate is incredible. I guess your thorough knowledge of all things Z helps you along!

I think we’ll have to find you something more difficult next time!

[Philippe]

Hello men

an update of the work:

yesterday morning I've been bleeding the brakes. The rear one went very fast.
The front brake doesn't work yet, it's a pain in the a... I'll get there sooner or later.
After that, around 10 AM, I continued cleaning the cylinder barrels, one has to keep the peace with the neighbours, right.
By noon the cylinder barrels were clean.

Yesterday afternoon, I started the assembly of the engine.
By 6 PM the lower engine was ready.
The pistons received new rings, the cranckshaft a new camchain.
I didn't mount the oil sump until the pistons were mounted.
Why not?
In the past, it happened a few times that, when putting the clips in the pistons in order to hold the piston pen at its place, those clips jumped away and yes, you guessed it, they fel into the crancksase. Sometimes I could recover them with a magnet and sometimes I had to remove the oil sump to find them back. So this time I waited to mount the oil pump and the oil sump until the pistons were secured.
I learn each time a little bit more.

This morning the work continued.
By 8 AM the engine was mounted in the frame!

I didn't mount the cylinder head because it must be cleaned first but I secured the barrels with 4 nuts in order to prevent them from coming loose .
It's also much easier to lift the engine in the frame, I have more space to maneuvre around with the engine and the engine is not that heavy.

Once all the bolts and nuts were mounted, I started to mount the gear selector and its cover.
I don't mount it until the engine is in the frame because it's tempting to get a hold on the gear selector when putting the engine in the frame and before you know it, the aluminium holder in the engine where the gear selector slides in, breaks off. Avoid that at all costs!
It can be fixed but the whole engine must be disassembled once again.

After that I mounted the chain sprocket, the drive chain and the security plate.
I brought the chain to tension and discovered that the tensioners were mounted inside out...yes sh.. happens.
The rear axle needed to be removed again and the tensioners turned around. It didn't take long but anyway, it's a loss of time and effort.
Another lesson learned!

After that little setback I mounted the starter, it's easy to do that before the camchain tensioner is mounted.

A few more bits were mounted on the engine:
the oil pressure switch and its housing is mounted at this stage.
When the cylinderhead is mounted, it's difficult to tighten the bolts of the oil pressure switch housing.

The earth lead was also attached

Then it was time to install the oil filter and the oil drain bolt.
Don't forget to mount the ring between the oil filter and the spring! A lot of rings are thrown away after changing the oil filter because they're covered with oil, stick to the old oil filter and they're hard to see.

When mounting the oil filter, try to line the three bolts up, in that case it's easy to let the old oil drip in the cannister as wel from the sump as from the oil filter.

So, that's it for now.
Perhaps soon more news.
GrtZ
Philippe

[Philippe]

Hi r3sc

I think I found something more complicated, in Germany, guess what ?
As soon as it's at my place I'll let you all know...it's a Kawasaki, that's certain!
Let's wait and see how the negotiations are going.
GrtZ
Philippe

[r3sc]

Hi Philippe,

I’m watching this space already!

I hope it’s something that takes you out of your comfort zone and challenges you a little more!

Regards

Pete.