Kawasaki KR1000 Endurance Replica

So are your sockets in the background of the vid wiggy 👀

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Front forks tubes and stanchions might be ready to pick up this week from Brooks Suspension - realised to late that the van is out of MOT after tomorrow so if they are I can't pick them up, managed to get booked in Friday afternoon so it will be next week hopefully!

Rear shock has hit a dead end as I was going to have a 10mm longer shaft fitted (not entirely necessary but a nice to have): how's this for customers service from Nitron, my Ohlin's guy got in touch with them to order a longer shaft and they refused to supply one, saying his customer (me) would have to order a new shock (around £1200) Thanks Nitron for your Customer Service of Excellence 🤷‍♂️ So onwards and upwards with a new spring and a reduced bump stop to get sufficient rear wheel travel :)

Borrowed a glaze buster from Dave who owns Mutts Nuts: https://www.muttsnuts2strokes.co.uk/

Glaze busted the bores and the barrels are now on the 'for final clean' worktop in the kitchen while there's no wimmins aboot :whistle:


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Kawasaki KR1000 Replica 254.jpg



Crank cases are clean (ish) now - needing a final key with 400 wet & dry and the gasket faces cleaning. Just waiting for a puller to pull the Alternator Rotor as I'm fitting a very posh race generator with CNC machine cover which will look wonderful.

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Cylinder head to clean next and then get the valves lapped in.

Then it's masking crank cases . barrels and head ready for paint - which will have to wait for a warm March day when the sun is shining and the wind is low :unsure:

Hoping for engine in by April (the plan being to lift the frame over the engine to prevent any disasters) and front and rear ends on soon after so I can fit the exhaust which will be a major milestone...
 
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I thought you had connections in a tool room. Can't you get a new Nitron shaft knocked up in there.

TB
Yeh, but then getting it hard chromed is a hassle - easier to leave it for now. It was just a thought as I dropped my shock off that I would get him to ask.
If it ends up needing it then I can sort later. With all the adjustment I've built in I can probably get the travel to 80 or 90mm - there's 10mm adjustment on the shock length as well as the 3 positions on the swingarm, dropping on the rear position and winding the shock out 10mm will increase the travel much more due to the increased angle :)(y)
 
After messing with the fiddly Tesi most of the afternoon I decided to remove the cyclinder head studs for a clean up.
They were set to the wrong levels anyway with around 4 having been set too deep so this needed correcting.

They came out easy using 2 nuts, mainly due to not having any thread lock on them 🤷‍♂️ This is likely the reason some were set too far into the crank case if they’ve wound in further during torquing the head nuts.

At least they can be reused as they are APE high tensile studs…



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Now I’ve got my compressor 🙂 I decided to start cleaning the cylinder head - so this afternoon I removed the valve stem oil seals and valve spring seats.

I carefully removed the seals: this is what stem seals look like after 25 years of being stood 👀

They were brittle as fook, like glass! 😮

Oh, and my fork tubes and stanchions are mere days away hopefully!


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Been mainly cleaning the head and barrels over the last week, but it's got to the point where I have had to pinch Mrs Ex's stash of cotton buds to clean each finned recess with brake cleaner to get the last of the surface gunge out prior to paint.


My rear shock is now ready with a new spring and reduced bump stop to give a little more travel. And on that note, seeing as I have my forks parts back, I have assembled the rebound damper & fork lowers so when I go and pick up the shock from my local Ohlin's specialist next week he can re fit the dampers for me with the proper tool :)



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Barrels and head are now ready for masking for paint - I just had a couple of small JB Weld repairs to do to the head. The first being one of the end cam cover bolt threads. It had a piece cracked off the top of the thread although the bolt still had enough thread to torque up I though it best to try JB Weld for a repair.

Never used this stuff before but it is fab, had to leave it overnight before I could refinish the repair though.

This was the easier of the two repairs, the second will be finished tomorrow as I needed to add a touch more JB Weld today.

I used Duct Tape for a mould on the first repair and inserted a bolt with a thin coating of molybdenum grease on the threads to stop the JB Weld sticking to them. Then mixed and squished the gunge in to the recess.

Once set a bit of fettling and all done, unnoticeable once painted...






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Barrels and head are now ready for masking for paint - I just had a couple of small JB Weld repairs to do to the head. The first being one of the end cam cover bolt threads. It had a piece cracked off the top of the thread although the bolt still had enough thread to torque up I though it best to try JB Weld for a repair.

Never used this stuff before but it is fab, had to leave it overnight before I could refinish the repair though.

This was the easier of the two repairs, the second will be finished tomorrow as I needed to add a touch more JB Weld today.

I used Duct Tape for a mould on the first repair and inserted a bolt with a thin coating of molybdenum grease on the threads to stop the JB Weld sticking to them. Then mixed and squished the gunge in to the recess.

Once set a bit of fettling and all done, unnoticeable once painted...






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That stuff looks quite handy mate, keep us posted how it holds up (y) (y)
 
That stuff looks quite handy mate, keep us posted how it holds up (y) (y)
Yeh, I have read many good reports - I got the original version as it's the strongest evidently and withstands up to 700 degrees so supposedly as strong as the aluminium! I had a good roughness to key to and it was clinically clean with a final wipe with isopropanol so hopefully all good (y)
 
My second repair had 1/3 of the thread broken out for the full height of the boss - it still torqued up OK but would have probably cracked again in use.

This one needed a little mould making from a plastic top off a mastic nozzle.

Same method as before, in the last picture you can see how well the threads have formed and transition into the remaining aluminium threads.





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