Hello from Ultima Thule

Hi everyone  

Nearly 50 years ago I took a demo Z650 out for a spin, but I haven't put a Kawasaki in my garage until recently. And since I like oldish analogous things, I ended up adopting an old GPz750 not long ago. It was obvious that the bike would need some attention, but since I like spannering, I thought it would be a nice addition to my other bikes, that, by the way, all have drive shafts instead of chains. 

 

I know very little about the history of the GPz. It came with an old tax sticker indicating that in may have been imported from Poland. It already had some battle scars indicating low speed contact with tarmac, but also clues that a mechanic unfamiliar with the concept 'torque' (as in torque wrench) had been working on it. But it ran . . .

 

I've been looking at a couple internet forums for Kawasaki's, but most of them seemed to have died away when it comes to activity. That was until I noticed kzrider. So here I am

Welcome aboard! What a sweet project, 

I must admit that I have never seen through-bolts and nuts on a cam cover. I hope that is the worst of P.O.'s bungling.

Welcome aboard...welcome to KZRider.  You are sure to have plenty of fun working on this motorcycle...they were highly regarded when they were first sold.

It's not uncommon for those threads to strip.
The alloy gets old and brittle and the threads can fracture and strip even before the stated torque is reached.
It's nothing a few helicoils shouldn't fix.

TexasKZ wrote:

I must admit that I have never seen through-bolts and nuts on a cam cover. I hope that is the worst of P.O.'s bungling.

Me too   When I saw that, it got me worried. But when browsing the restomod threads her, I came across this posted by Bevelhead: 

www.kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/620005...tomod?start=0#895539

which shows the same 'fix' . So apparently not unusual, as zed1015 pointed out. 

zed1015 post=925904 userid=14135
         It's not uncommon for those threads to strip.   The alloy gets old and brittle and the threads can
         fracture and strip even before the stated torque is reached. It's nothing a few helicoils shouldn't fix. 

Thanks for pointing that out   Yes, helicoils or time-sert would be a better fix.   

Welcome, have fun

   You've found a comfy little air-cooled corner of interwebs Motorcycle Madness.  It's populated almost exclusively by those who, like ourselves, are inflicted with The Dreaded Z-Bug.

   The Dreaded Z-Bug compels those unfortunates who are suffering from its mind-altering effects to acquire more and more Z-bikes, along with Z-bike parts, manuals, and all manner of arcane Z-bike knowledge.  It's a survival mechanism of the (supposedly) inanimate objects collectively known as Z-bikes.

   There is no known cure.

   Welcome to The aZylum!

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

Welcome from the Southeast USA. You'll love the GPz when you get it sorted. 

TexasKZ wrote:

I hope that is the worst of P.O.'s bungling.

I just remembered that I have other examples of similar work . . . 

I've had the forks apart to change the stanchion oil seals, and then it of course helps to get the mudguard off. A friend assisted me with this, and noticed serious effort was needed to undo the bolts attaching the mudguard to the fork sliders. One of them just snapped . . .  



Normally I would apply heat to alloy female threads when I notice a bolt is stuck, to avoid snapping them. Fortunately I have previous experience with drilling out such bolt residues  

Sometimes I wonder if the previous 'mechanics' have used parts from other but similar bike models. The handlebars are angled where they fit the 'bar clamps, and the only orientation that allowed the handlebar control switch units to be fitted in a 'normal' position caused the handlebars to sit really low. So low that the brake lever hit the frame when at full steering lock to the left. This must have made the previous owner pissed off with the bike, particularly since the leaking fork oil seals didn't allow the air assisted forks to hold their air. 

Now whilst going through other issues, I've ground off the locating tabs inside the handlebar switch units, so I can rotate the 'bars to a more upright position. But I wonder if this GPz originally came with straight instead of angled 'bars?