1984 Katana 7/11

[pete]

Mag Mopus?? Haven't heard that name in a while! I guess you were well and truly enjoying the 1100

[pete]

Looks like I missed updating this a while back when I discovered that the pitting in the front fork leg had messed up the seal and I've had a minor fork oil leak for a while now. I was contemplating getting the fork legs re-chromed but I also found Ohno-Speed fork legs from Webike in Japan for not much more price wise and the bonus of not having to have the Kat sitting for 3+ weeks waiting for the fork legs to get re-chromed.

Ordered those with new seals, gaskets, and the lower bushes and they arrived yesterday. Time for some fun this weekend!

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

[nvr2old]

They're just never really done are they, Pete..? Looks like some nice parts.

[pete]

Haha so true Larry! Yeah the fork legs get good reports and are supposed to be a bit tougher than the stock ones as well, not sure how true that is but as long as they do the job I'm good with that.

I still have to get back to rebuilding the cylinder head yet but that's delayed after having to do the forks first.

[pete]

Finally! New fork legs are done.

New top and bottom bushes and new seals as well.

Going to test ride on the commute today which isn't ideal but given the weather it's the only chance I'll get until next week.

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

[steve murdoch]

Motorcycle restoration can be the same as work/repairs done around the house.
Paint one room, the rest look shabby and they all get done.
Forks look great but time for a new tire. haha.

[pete]

Haha so true Steve! Although that front tyre is still good, haven't even got 7,000kms on it yet

[zuluwiz]

All Right, Pete!! Bike Of The Month!! Very well deserved, too, mate.

[pete]

Cheers mate! I managed to get a photo a while back that I was happy to submit, big thank you to all those who helped me out and offered advice, no way I could've done it without that! Pretty happy to see it on the front page of the GSR

[Arronduke]

Pete your bike looks great, and well deserves the BOTM.
I have a set of Wemoto fork stanchions ready to go on my Kat but have not had to use them as I ended up with another from end.
$458 AUD plus delivery - I need a set for my GSXR11 at some point how much were the set from Webike - Japan?

[pete]

Cheers mate! Really happy with it and I still grin ear to ear every time I ride it.

The Ohno-Speed ones from Webike ended up around $AU450 including shipping. The front end feels awesome now, nothing like it was, very stable and planted which I suspect was partly due to flogged out bushes and partly due to running 5wt fork oil instead of 15wt which I have in there now. For comparison, re-chroming the originals would have been $AU380, and if they needed straightening that would've added some more although not sure how much extra.

[pete]

It's time to get back and rebuild the cylinder, so I broke out the dial gauge and micrometer tonight and started checking a few of the valves.


So far, runout is good at about 0.01mm (0.05mm service limit) but the valves so far are right at the bottom of the OD service limit, 0.2150" for the inlets and 0.2144" for the exhausts (Dial gauge is in mm, micrometer is in "). Many more to measure yet but they're fairly consistent. At this point I'm thinking to proceed as planned which is to do the valve guides but before getting seats cut or anything I'll try the valves with new guides and see what the free play is like. Just realised the valve can't be seen in the photo, but it's there I promise!


Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

[pete]

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that all the valves are nice and straight, and I'm reasonably confident the faces are good enough that a simple lap job will be enough to seat them properly. I need to properly inspect the valve seats yet though, not sure if they'll need cutting or not.

The bad news is that all the valves are at the bottom of the outside diameter service limit, some possibly a hair under. I'm still thinking it's worwhile replacing the guides and checking the spec before contemplating replacing the valves.

[GregT]

You're going to need to measure the existing guide ID. In my experience, if the stems are worn, the guides will be worse on the 16V engines.

Got a set of small hole gauges ? Cheapies are good enough, it's about feel and having a good micrometer.

[pete]

Hey Greg, I most definitely need to replace the guides, and that's actually where this all started. Every single valve has in excess of 1mm free play side to side in the guides due to (I believe) a DIY porting job.

I know to "do it right" I should go new valves as well, but the $$ are still tight so I'm hoping I can simply do the guides and reuse the existing valves. If I can get another 50 to 100K kms out of that then I reckon it's worthwhile. This motor most definitely had a hard life! I'm not sure if I need to get the seats cut yet or if I can simply lap the valves in.

Here's some older pics of what I discovered:

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr