Coming Apart at the Seams

Where to now? So much to do. I thought about taking the carbs apart, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with all those tiny parts. I went for the motor instead.

The camshafts were easy to remove. They were held on by caps bolted on top of them. Again, they seem to be in good shape (from the untrained eye anyway).

Next up according to the manual was removing 4 "blind caps". They must be called "blind" because I can't see what's under there and have know idea why I must take them off. Its the round thing with the bolt sticking out of it. Normally the bolt isn't there. You use that to pry it out.

Aaaahh! These little buggers won't budge! The manual has a picture of a guy gently pulling these out with two fingers. Right. I sprayed some lubricant on them and then tried this...

Bingo! Free Packer rally towels to the rescue once again.

It definitely need that lube. They were dry as bone. It turns out that the bottom of these caps are exposed to the elements even though they appear to be sealed inside the engine. More on this later. Underneath the blind caps are long bolts that hold the cylinder together. Here we are removing the nuts off of them...

With all those removed, I pulled the cylinder head off and took a look underneath. Lots of carbon build up and why are the intake valves tan and not black like everything else?

What the hell are these things? They must have fell out when I turned over the cylinder head. Manual says they are "valve lifters" with shims seated at the top. It also says to keep track of which valve they came off of. Great. I've got a 50/50 chance. At least I know they are both from the exhaust side.

Some spark plugs. The left one looks pretty good, but what the hell do I know.

The pistons are at TDC by chance. I don't remember putting them that way. More carbon, but that's common on an old bike from what I'm reading on kz750 forums. Man, I can't wait to clean all this filth off. She's gonna shine up real good.

Next up was the cylinder block. Manual says to gently pry with a screw driver. Well, that didn't work. I shot some lubricant all around the seam and let it sit for awhile. Still no luck. Then I had the brilliant idea that perhaps the pistons were stuck to the sleeves. Sprayed those down with some lube and turned the crankshaft. I got the pistons freely moving which is a good sign. Here they are at bottom.

But still can't get the cylinder block to break free. I read that some lubricant down those long bolts can do the trick. Why? As mentioned above, these things are actually exposed to the elements. Dirt, sand, gunk, oil & water can pack in down there especially with the vibration of the engine. So I spayed a bunch in there to loosen it up. It worked. Look at all that crap. No wonder it was frozen together.

My parts baggies are piling up :)

At this point, I'm pleasantly amazed that I'm actually doing all this. Its going well so far. I know I'll hit some roadblocks at some point, but I have my garage buddies for support.