Thanks for the support guys! This is definitely the farthest I've been inside an engine and six months ago I wouldn't have even considered attempting. But I did my own valves a while back and that wasn't too bad. Before that, I was rather nervous about that job, but after I was done, it seemed I was all concerned about nothing. This stuff really is not that bad. Invest in some decent tools, doesn't have to be top of the line - Sears Craftsman sockets and wrenches are fine, a torque wrench is mandatory, as is the service manual. Just take your time - it's just nuts and bolts, right? Patience is key, and while the photos are good for showing others, I do it for myself as well to help me remember little details for how things go back together. I don't often have to rely on that, but I have gone back and looked at certain photos when I wasn't sure about something. They are a great reference. And for anyone wanting to do this, don't rely just on my documentation - you'll definitely want a service manual. There is a special way the rings are supposed to be oriented which is documented very well in the manual along with dozens of other little tidbits that you might not know unless you read about it in the manual.

Also, Motoguy128, I think you probably know but I'm not referring to you when I mentioned "Motoguy" in relation to the break-in procedure above. I really meant "Motoman" which is the http://www.mototuneusa.com site guy. That was an unfortunate braino on my part and didn't want you to think I was referring to anything you said or anything.

And Deej - no I didn't realize you were just messing with me, I thought you really thought you saw something - good one! You definitely have my number. I'm watching out for you for from now on

Thanks again for all the support - I'm hoping I can get it all back together this evening after work.

Oh, BTW, I just talked to our dealer's service guy and he said I need to clean all the factor gunk off the parts with some contact cleaner, then a light coat of penetrating oil. Also, the gasket between the cylinder and the engine housing left some residue there, he said that all has to come off and to be _very_ careful scraping it off. Use some contact cleaner to clean the surfaces - the gasketed surfaces should be clean and dry when reassembled. He also said the cylinder has been ball honed at the factory and requires minimal break-in. Just take it easy for a few "heat cycles" as he phrased it.

 

Current status:

I've got the piston in the cylinder and the cylinder and cylinder head re-installed. However, the 8mm allen head cylinder head bolts require 46 Nm of torque (34 ft-lbs) - yes they are TIGHT! So I need a 1/2" to 3/8" drive adapter because my 3/8" torque wrench doesn't go that high and I have to use my big 1/2" drive torque wrench. Unfortunately my allen head sockets are all 3/8" so I'm currently stuck.

Until then there's not much I can do. I've actually spent most of the evening cleaning and scraping the cylinder, cylinder head, and engine body mating surfaces. They need to be clean and dry. Especially for the engine head body there was a lot of residue from the previous gasket. My service guy at the dealer said that's all got to come off. I got some gasket disolver which helped tremendously.

Also, I spent a good bit of time prep'ing the cylinder itself. Service guy said to clean all the sticky factory oils off using contact cleaner. I had to swing by the dealer to get some of that. WD40 or similar stuff is no substitute. I'll have a photo later of what I used - it's pretty amazing stuff. After a good cleaning, service guy said to use a little 10W40 on a rag and wipe down the inside of the cylinder - use very light coat otherwise the rings won't seat as well.

I then cleaned the piston with the same stuff and gave it a light wipe down also. I put the rings on last night, so that was done. I then attached the piston to the piston rod - those snap rings are pretty stiff, but once you figure it out it's pretty easy. I then bodged up a piston ring compressor using a 3" hose clamp and eased the cylinder over the piston, pushing the hose clamp down. That worked very nicely. I don't think I have a picture of that. Bummer.

Make sure you don't damage the gaskets during all this.

After that, ease on the cylinder head. Use molybdenum sulfide grease on the 8mm bolt threads and seating surface. This is so you can really torque it down. Then you torque each one down to 15 Nm (11 ft-lbs). After than, you apply the heavy torque to each one again but this time use 46 Nm (34 ft-lbs). That's where I'm at now, waiting on the adapter so I can torque them to their final higher level.

BTW, those bolts were on there very tight when I removed them. I thought they had to have some thread lock or something, but they don't - it is slick grease to facilitate the heavy torquing.

Anyway - I'm now waiting on a tool. I think the hardest parts are done. I'll do my best to get it all back together tonight, but there's still a good bit to do, most notably re-time the cams. That might take a few tries, but there's really no short-cuts there. After that, I need to reattach the coolant connections, engine frame bolt to the cylinder head, oil line, then refill the coolant and engine oil. At that point, I think I'll be ready to crank it. You can believe I'll be holding my breath for that. This could all be a very expensive little adventure if I missed some key step along the way. Let's hope not!

Cheers,

 

Doh! Well, it's all back together except for the fuel tank. I was replacing the coolant when I noticed a leak from the right radiator. Doh! Double doh! I was soooo close. Oh well - tomorrow I pull the radiator and see if I can repair it. I know what I did - I was using a knife to cut the zip tie that I zipped to the timing chain. When it cut through, the point of my knife went into the radiator. When it happened I looked but couldn't see a hole so I thought it just got the fins. I guess not. Hopefully it's not too hard to fix.

I did verify that it cranks though so that makes me happy. I haven't started it yet, though since I'll need to leave the fuel tank off to remove the radiator.

Everything went back together real smooth aside from my "Homer" moment with the radiator. Should have used wire cutters. Doh! Here are some photos:

Contact Cleaner:



Gasket Remover:



Cylinder and piston in place:



Arrow forward!



Dinner:



Here's a shot of the other side of the valves - this is through the output passage from the carburetor. You can't really tell from this angle, but I could see the tops of my valves pretty good. The look fine.



Cylinder head cleaned and ready to go back on:



Fitting it - don't forget the gasket!



In place and ready to torque down the cylinder head bolts:



Cams re-installed and re-timed:



From here just replace the valve cover, hook up the coolant hoses, the oil routing tube, bolt the engine cylinder head back to the frame, re-install the carb, re-fill the oil, refill the coolant (check for leaks!). Install gas tank, shouds, side panels, and seat. Crank it up!

Whew! If I had to do it again it would go a lot faster, but all in all it wasn't too bad aside from my goof with the radiator. If I hadn't done that, I'd be firing it up right now instead of kicking myself. Oh well - no need crying over spilled milk. Just another opportunity to learn something new - radiator repair

Cheers,



EDIT: update image links

 

Nice man I hope the radiator fix is easy for you. I heard that just one half of our radiators are like $400.00 anyone know what the cost might be if we had to replace half?

 

Jolly well done old chap [8D] ... and a great write up and [sm=Flahssssss.gif]

[sm=groupwave.gif]

 

not sure how much new. im sure expensive. but if the klx300 is the same there is a set of radiators on ebay with no bids here....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2003-...spagenameZWDVW

 

Hey, thanks for that link - that's great. I've currently got repairs underway. The hole is not very big - a thin slice where the sharp point of the blade went in about 1/4 of an inch or so. I first tried solder, but that didn't work out so well. Plan B is my trusty old faithful JB Weld - truly wonderful stuff. I'm confident it will hold, but I may try to get those KLX300 radiators anyway just in case. The part numbers are different on the Kawasaki web site. The KLX300 does not have a fan it appears but the mounting tabs and the temperature sensor holes appear to be present so I suspect they are the same, just not painted like the KLX250S radiators. Anyway, if I can get them without too much expense, I'd be willing to risk it.

The JB Weld has been setting up for about an hour now. I'll probably brave a fluid test in a few hours after it hardens some more.

 

If the hole is'nt very big, perhaps you should consider taking it to a welding or radiator shop to have them take a look at it. Last year I put a hole in the radiator of my 05 ZX-6R following another bike at high speed ( 145 mph ) and his rear tire threw a rock back into my radiator when I had no guards on.. [:@]

Sounds like the hole I had was quite a bit worse then the one you describe. ( depending location of course. )

In any case.., the repair took about an hour and was done up beautifully, and only cost me about 30 bucks. That would restore your radiator to original strength and give you peace of mind perhaps over JB weld. In my experience its never been as good as a real weld..., and it would'nt be fun if you ever sprang a leak deep in the woods/mountains somewhere.

 

good idea. would be worth $30-40

 

Hot damn! It works!

Ok, backing up just a bit, as I mentioned I tried soldering the radiator, but that didn't work out too well. So I used JB Weld. I love that stuff and it works great - very sticky. I cleaned off the area really well with that contact cleaner then blew it dry with my air compressor, then layered on the thick gooey JB Weld, totally surrounding the "slice" puncture above and below, filling around it at least 1/4" thick on all sides. I don't this this is going to come loose or leak. I let it set up for about 8 hours and it was good and hard. I'm sure a professional could have fixed it right up, but it's Saturday and I really wanted to get this repaired.

Anyway - coolant fill checked out - no leaks.

The moment of truth - turn the key, press the red button ... fired right up on the first crank! I'm stoked!

Not too much to report regarding performance. I'm following the recommendations from several reliable sources on this and am going to take it easy on it for the first few heat cycles. I did do about 30 minutes of 0 to 1/2 throttle 1st to 3rd gear run-ups / downs. Feels fine. I used an IR thermometer and checked the temps on various components. On the left hand side of the engine, the cylinder, cylinder head, coolant hoses and radiator were a steady 170 degrees F. The engine crankcase was around 180 to 190. On the right hand side, the side where the exhaust pipe goes past, the cylinder and cylinder head were 190 degrees F. The coolant hoses were 170 F. The exhaust header pipe itself reached 300 degrees F while it was around 200 degrees at the mid pipe and exhaust port.

BTW, I removed the header wrap I had on my pipe. It was a bit difficult to deal with when removing the exhaust and putting it back on, so I just removed it. Also, it seemed to discolor the pipe a little bit. Prior to wrapping the header, it had turned a sort've bronze color. The header wrap tended to make that much darker and bluer so I guess it was retaining more heat inside as advertized. I cleaned up the pipe with a stainless steel brush to bring back some luster and while it doesn't look new, it does look better. Aside from the coloring, I can't say I really noticed any performance difference. And also, I still felt a lot of heat from the pipe on my leg. I'll probably end up getting one of those carbon fiber heat shields someone posted about.

While I don't yet have much performance results from the 300cc upgrade to report, the good news is that it works and fired up on the first crank. Even though I'm taking it easy for the first few runs, I couldn't help but blip the throttle a few times while in first. Traction was poor because it has been raining hear for the past few days (though it is nice today). Even so, the front end came up a little without much effort. So that's promising. I didn't push it, yet.

Oh, for all you carburetor experts - I've noticed some popping at the exhaust pipe on deceleration now. What does that mean? Too rich, too lean? Which one? Something else?

It's been fun, but I'm glad its working now. This would have been a very expensive little adventure for me had it not worked. But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I just gained 20% more displacement.