i was given a kwaka.....

[thebrandonbeezy]

20180526_191925 by Brandon Hobock, on Flickr

she is rough... but ive always wanted one. its a 98 with 36k miles and a title. all parts not shown are in boxes, like all of them. im wondring are the cyl bores nikaseal or steel ?

do you guys think free was too much for this project or should i have not taken it on.?

motor is seized, dont know the extent of the damage yet. probably wont know for a long time, suzi II will get done before this big boy will get started on

[steve murdoch]

Seems that a number of them had problems with the bottom end.
This article talks about and recommends an "oil-bypass" system upgrade. Maybe save this article somewhere for when you do get to it.

http://kawasakiworld.com/zx-11/9523-zx-11-3-failures-interesting-westech-article.html

[thebrandonbeezy]

Thanks man!

[gsrick]

They seem to have similar problems with mid 2000s ZX6 also. A few months ago I did three engine swaps in one month and all three had #3 cylinder issues.

[thebrandonbeezy]

Well, a few years ago i did see this bike fire off, it made no bad noises that i remember. In regards to the oiling issues, the guy who gave it to me and i have a friend who has been drag racing these bikes for as long as ive been alive, has recently moved up to the zx14 a few years ago. He knows all the oil tricks and what to do to the trans to make it stronger. From what im told. So thats pretty cool.
The big problem with it is that its just been setting out in the weather, water got it blah blah blah. This will be my most ambitious project yet.. i have zero experience with water cooled bikes , as far as takeing the engines apart.

[gsrick]

Well, a few years ago i did see this bike fire off, it made no bad noises that i remember. In regards to the oiling issues, the guy who gave it to me and i have a friend who has been drag racing these bikes for as long as ive been alive, has recently moved up to the zx14 a few years ago. He knows all the oil tricks and what to do to the trans to make it stronger. From what im told. So thats pretty cool.
The big problem with it is that its just been setting out in the weather, water got it blah blah blah. This will be my most ambitious project yet.. i have zero experience with water cooled bikes , as far as takeing the engines apart.

Hopefully I may be near by soon and can give you a hand when you're ready. As far as water cooled goes, it's just messier. It's basically the same thing, the cylinders are not part of the block like the late model blocks and it can be bored. Here's a manual. http://motorhead.jactup.com/ZX-11/te...-converted.pdf

Cylinder Wear.Since there is a difference in cylinder wear in different directions, takea side-to-side and a front-to-back measurement at each of the 3locations (total of 6 measurements) shown in the figure. *If any of the cylinder inside diameter measurements exceeds the servicelimit, the cylinder will have to be bored to oversize and then honed.[A] 10 mm[8] 60 mm[C] 20 mmCylinder Inside DiameterStandard: 75.994 - 76.006 mmService Limit: 76.10 mm

[LAB3]

Sometimes free can turn into a money pit real fast! Part out what you can (eBay, Craigslist) and use the money to find a bike that's been sitting in a garage not running for a few years after the owner got over his mid-life crisis.

[GS1150Pilot]

Sometimes free can turn into a money pit real fast! Part out what you can (eBay, Craigslist) and use the money to find a bike that's been sitting in a garage not running for a few years after the owner got over his mid-life crisis.

With this particular bike, I agree 100%.

[thebrandonbeezy]

We'll see, not touching it till suzi II is done

[hillsy]

I had a C1 model given to me a few years back - rough as guts but wasn't seized. To my surprise it fired up after a carb clean and associated leak plugging (o rings in the water pipes had perished).

The word I had on them at that time was the oil sight glass was positioned too low - it was advised to have the oil at the top of the glass or else the #3 big ends would suffer.

I did a bit of work on it to get it rideable only to find it was jumping out of second gear. Ha - I sold it off for bugger all after that.....

[wymple]

It's too easy, and cheap, to find something far better to waste my time on than that thing. Parts only.

[thebrandonbeezy]

We'll see, it has a lot of plusses.
Clean title
All the plastics are good
The seat is good
The carbs are free moving and complete
The seat is mint
Has keys
97+ apparently didn't have the oil starvation problem
All electronics work

The bad
Will need top end rebuild at minimum
The body taken apart
Tank might be trash (tbd)

[GS1150Pilot]

Right there you have spelled "too expensive." They aren't worth much in decent condition, so that one is a victim of circumstance. Fix it only if you absolutely love it and do not plan to recoup your expenses.

[gsrick]

There are multiple things that can make an engine seem seized. The oiling problem for one, it's possible that it jumped time and bent a valve, more likely an intake valve. You can check this out easily by removing the carbs and looking in the intakes at the valves. You'll know it some are bent and if it's bent, then the piston is hitting it and keeping it from rotating forward. Do you know if it will rotate backwards? It's not usually recommended doing this, but the engine is already questionable. Third scenario is that it may be hydro locked. We are all too familiar with a cylinder being locked up with fuel, from a leaky carb or petcock, but I recently ran into a CBR600 at work that was locked up from having too much oil in it. I mean too much like over 8 quarts. There was so much oil it pushed up past the rings into the piston causing the hydro lock. I didn't know it until after checking the valves and was going to do a tear down. We often get bikes that are over full because people just don't know how to correctly check their oil level. So I put a typical 7 qt oil drain pan under the bike and let it drain, while I went to tell the boss what I'm doing. When I got back, the pan had already overflowed and it was still draining. After draining all the oil out and cleaning up a hell of a mess, I filled it up with the correct amount and changed the spark plugs. It fired up with no issues, but the smoke from excess oil on the cylinder walls and that went away after a few minutes.

[thebrandonbeezy]

Gotta pull the carbs off, but there is signs of water getting in