Lazy Summer

With riding season in full swing I've found it increasingly difficult to find time to work on the J2. Between rides to cottage country and doing crap around the house, the J2 has a hard time getting on my calendar.

Fast bikes ...

... sweeping hills ...

... peaceful lake towns ...

... and ducklings! Its a good summer :)

On top of all that I bagged myself a ZX7 N1!

The first and last generations of the ZX7 P/N

Anyways, about a month back, I had my cylinder head and valves machined. The cylinder head had its mating surface leveled and ports ground down a bit to help with flow into and out of the engine combustion chamber. The valves got a two angle cut. All the work came out to roughly $200.

Clean! Hard to see, but those ports have been rounded out

Looks cozy in there

Can you see the two angles? ... well its there!

Other goodies include fancy new BLUE valve seals and valve seats, caps, and springs off of a ZX7 K1.

Dear lord they're SO BLUE!! Nothing says 'aftermarket' like fluorescent, flamboyant colors.

ZX7 K bits! Neat!

So now I get to put all this stuff together which was a massive pain. Lots of small pieces to get lost and plenty of nooks and crannies within the head itself for things to hide. The fact that there are 16 valves just multiplies the grief.

Nothing like some good 'ol fashioned valve lapping to bore to you sleep at night

ZZZZZ... zzzzzzz...

All that ass pain gets you a hazy ring around your valve seats as demonstrated by the valve on the left

The same effect can be seen on the valve port (left is lapped)

Just repeat that 16 times and your done!

Next, it was time to get the springs back in the head. Installing the valve locks was the BIGGEST pain in the ass EVER. They're so bloody tiny and you've gotta manipulate them with tweezers in this confined space within the valve spring compressor. I've lost count of the number of times I had them squirting out form between the tweezers and shooting across the room. This is usually followed by a flurry of curses followed by 10-20 mins of crawling around my garage looking for a piece of metal approximately 5x5mm. Grrrr

Half way there

GOAAAAAAAAALL!

Sexy blooming effect :)

Installing the rocker arms afterwards was simple in comparison.

Rock out with your block out!

More blooming sexiness

You probably haven't noticed but the resolution of all these pics are different from ones in my previous post. That's because I got a new HTC Incredible S which has a 8 megapixel camera! That's right all these AWESOME pics were taken with a freaking PHONE!!!! Win.

Visit my Photobucket page here, here and here for more pictures related to this post.

Let the rebuild begin

So like I mentioned in my last post the first order of business was to install the alternator shaft which required an interference bearing to be pressed into the clutch side of the upper crank case. This turned out to be a huge pain. Heating the case and cooling the bearing didn't work. I even tried to make a half-assed bearing press which not only failed to press the bearing into place but did more harm than good.

This reeks of fail

Pictured above is a simple bearing press like any other home made device. You have a threaded rod, the bearing is fitted against a socket as shown and on the other side we have a washer to serve as a solid surface.

Oh damn, the stench of fail is overwhelming the senses

But what could go wrong with such a simple contraption? Well when the designer is a fucking moron (yours truly) apparently a lot can go wrong. Long story short, I torque the end with the socket, the bearing starts to slide in a bit and the next minute I realize the washer pictured above had got bent and pulled through the hole it was sitting in. FUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuukkkk!!!!! At least that was my initial reaction. Upon closer inspection about half a mm of aluminum got taken out of the lip and no substantial damage was done.

See? No harm done here, moving along then....

How did the bearing finally get put in place? Well I brought it to a local shop and by gently tapping the bearing with a socket, the dude got the bearing to slide right in.... I was overcome with shame, awe and relief. I imagine this is what people feel when the suffer from premature ejaculation; something real men like me don't have to worry about har har har

This bearing is responsible for ruining my life

Yayy!!! All put together now :)

I turn my attention to the crank and bearings while the transmission is still out; makes mating the case halves much easier.

So much wasted plastic

Alright, LETS DO THIS!!!

Crankshaft, check...

Knockoff plastigauge, check ...

Engine bolts, check

Why, hello there Mr. Plastigauge ...

*crunch*

~0.040mm ... well, a tad on the loose side but well below the maximum

Anyways I move on to the transmission starting with *drum roll*

...the shift drum...

...and shift forks

Next I take a look at the main shaft and ...

... WTF HAPPENED HERE!??! Lucky for me I bought half a spare motor

Thats me peeing on the main shaft...

All the main shaft components in their glory

Now that I have a (small) parts washer and air compressor, I don't know how I ever lived without them

Cleaner than a shaved beaver. Note the ball bearings, I nearly lost them TWICE! Yes I'm that retarded.

The gears look to be in good shape...

...and the fork cavities look to be within spec

Now all we need to do is add some engine oil ...

... and we're off. Note the heavy(ier) duty snap ring pliers; the transmission shafts are a massive pain

Done.

Into the engine we go now.

Now for the output shaft

Doesn't that just look magical? New bearings, fresh gears, clean aluminum and... oops I just messed up my pants

Here's some more tranny porn for your fapping pleasure

Next I do a test fitting of the crank shaft, crank case, and transmission starting with some molly grease

With the crank shaft in and gears in neutral, I mate the two halves together

PRESTO!!!

Everything looks (and feels) about right

So my next step is to find a high quality and calibrated torque wrench to torque up the rod bolts as well as the case bolts. The shitty Canadian tire and Harbor Freight stuff just isn't giving me all the confidence in the world right now. Plus I'm curious as to how a better torque wrench will effect my oil clearance readings....

Until next time.

Picture Album 1
Picture Album 2