After waiting ages for my parts to not come I just reordered them. I got everything torn down and started cleanup. Everything is going pretty well there (see gallery) although the end bearings definitely need to be replaced. It’s not going to happen, but it needs to happen. Such is life. Maybe next teardown.
Last night the case halves were resealed, tonight was the night to be dedicated to putting everything back together. I got hit with a roadblock at my very first part:
The one on the left is the wrong size – picked up from Ace. Debra hopefully can scour one up at a local Kawi dealer tomorrow so that the train isn’t railroaded for another week.
Sigh. Anyway, here are pictures related to the rest of the progress that has taken place since the last check-in:
29-Aug-2015 17:27, Motorola XT1060, 2.4, 4.499mm, 0.035 sec, ISO 1000
There isn’t much to add, I encountered a road block pretty quick. Next stop is to start working on splitting. Removing the stator cover was straightforward and was not disappointing. No massive amounts of corrosion or any other horrible findings there. Also I found that the flywheel has a very convenient pair of shoulders on it to grab, I’m not sure what people’s deal is with removing the head and stuffing wood or rags in to stop the engine from turning is. The other end took a bit of heat and a special tool, part# LONGASSPRYBAR to spin the drive coupler off. After removing I could then see the business I was after.
02-Aug-2015 17:36, Motorola XT1060, 2.4, 4.499mm, 0.035 sec, ISO 640
Yup, I’d guess there is an issue there. On to taking apart the other side, well while I can easily not turn the flywheel, I can’t easily remove it. It has center threads for removal, but the thread pattern is 18×1.5. I ordered the right tool, as well as all the gaskets I should need for reassembly and am now waiting on them. Day 3 should be cleaning out the inside of the hull and hopefully I’ll have some after photos to share from that. Otherwise we’re in a holding pattern until stuff arrives.
Admittedly, I’ve “owned” the thing for about a week now, today was my first opportunity to dip it in the lake and see if it a) floated, b) ran. It did both, but the latter it did very poorly. It was sold to me under the auspices that the stator needed to be replaced. It didn’t take me long to negate that as the case, or at least that’s not the big problem. Starts and idles on 1 cylinder, second comes in with a bit of RPMs. Crank seal all the way baby.
I bought a leakdown tester and rigged up some plugs for the intake and exhaust. I learned today that not all 2 cylinder 2 strokes have a center seal(s). How that actually works, I don’t know – but I sealed off 1 side expecting I’d be able (prefer) to do the leakdown 1 cylinder at a time and was greeted with air coming out the other cylinders intake ports. WTF? It can’t be a center seal problem because only 1 cylinder is messed up. I came to the computer and googled and saw no existence whatsoever of a center seal on this thing. Like I said – how that works I don’t know. Poorly I’d guess, but whatever. I’m not about to go re-engineering Kawasaki’s Crankshaft and Crankcase that they sold 1 bajillion of.
I took the engine out, plugged both exhaust and intake ports up as well as I could; not as good as I did with just the 1 cylinder, but I was defeated at this point. Realistically it didn’t matter anyway, I was seeking to prove to myself something I was already 99% confident of. Sealed up pretty well, back on the air, the following YouTube video clearly shows it likes blowing bubbles just like a 4 year old by with a bottle of that soapy crap and the ring:
Other mentionables, with the engine out the grime in the hull cleans away pretty easy. I think with about an hour of Comet, water and a bit of elbow grease it will look almost presentable inside.
Compression is 120 on the PTO side and 130 on the Mag side. Not sure if that’s good bad or other, but it’s going to be what it is for now. So far I’ve found the thing super easy to work on and I’d like to keep it that way as much as I can. I’m going to split off the bottom to replace the seal and hope to go no deeper than that before shoveling it all back together.
Lastly, there is one picture where you’ll go WTF am I looking at. It’s a snapshot looking into the spark plug adapter for my leakdown tester, and what you see is uncleaned metal shavings. Way to go cheap tool company, couldn’t think of a better thing to drop down into my cylinder!!!
That’s it for day 1.
01-Aug-2015 18:26, Motorola XT1060, 2.4, 4.499mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 400
